Spy Meets World
by prissygirl
Summary: In which Syd meets Vaughn and returns to school, and Dixon eats a lot of cheese.
1. And So It Begins

**Disclaimer**: I do not own ALIAS because if I did the third season would never have happened, Lena Olin would have been kidnapped if that's what it took to keep her on the show, and I would marry Will.

**Summary**: What if Syd and all her friends had lived this espionage life in high school? What if Syd had been a freshman in high school, not college when she was recruited? What if the CIA gave her assignments from a dance school? What if while Syd was dealing with Home Ec with Francie and running track with Will she had to deal with SD-6 operations and running from bad guys, all before her bed time? Well, it may sound preposterous and make no sense, but hey I'm bored and sick with the third season, so there.

**_Ch. 1 "And So It Begins"_**

Sydney kicked the locker for the third consecutive time. Although, it hadn't worked before maybe the third time's a charm. It wasn't.

"This cannot be happening.....not again," Sydney mumbled to herself.

"Can I help?" asked a voice.

Sydney turned around. Good old janitor Khaza....whatever. He was always there when her locker went psycho.

"There you go," he said, as he opened the locker.

"Thank you, Mr. Khaza..."

"A lot of people have trouble with it," he said cutting her off. "You can just call me the man," he said jokingly. Then he sauntered away with a mischievous smile and twinkle in his eye.

Sydney glanced at the clock and grabbed her book as she scrambled to make it to her next class. She made it just as the bell rang, probably due to those extra track practices she had somehow fit into her busy schedule, and took a seat next to her crush, Danny.

The teacher, Mr. Pool, drowned on and on and finally got around to the dreaded assignment which was to read the whole chapter and do all the section reviews. Sydney groaned. As if she didn't have enough to do already. She still had to finish that science project with Francie, read the rest of "David Copperfield", write an essay on a topic she hadn't even picked yet, go to a "Debate Meeting", and plan her father's surprise birthday party. The last of which she was ecstatic about. She hadn't seen her father for at least four months and he had just called a few nights ago to tell her he was coming back to Los Angeles for some business meetings and would be home for awhile. He had been overseas selling airplane parts to some company and now he was coming home! Of course, Jack hadn't mentioned his birthday, probably had forgot about it himself, and had said he was just coming home to get some sleep. So he was probably going to be thrilled at the prospect of a bunch of people surprising him for his birthday. The only problem was Syd didn't know anyone to invite, at least not any grownups. She was thinking about inviting Francie and Will, but then she found out Francie had to get braces on that day and Will was just plain scared of her dad. So that left her with zip. Maybe just her nanny and she could just throw the party for him, she thought. Except that wasn't very exciting and she wanted him to be proud of her. She was always trying to get his approval. She sent him her very best papers and newspaper clippings of her sports scores and theatrical performances. But nothing seemed good enough for the man. Although, he was distant and had no time for her, she idolized him. He seemed like a very important man, always being off on important meetings with foreign companies. She didn't do anything that important, well, one thing was sort of important. She wasn't suppose to tell anyone, but maybe this would be worthy of his appreciation.

She was snapped out of her day dream when Danny tapped her on the shoulder.

"Um, the bell's rung. Aren't you going to Algebra?"

"Oh, yeah. I just sorta....spaced out," Sydney finished lamely.

"Who wouldn't in Pool's class? That guy could bore us to death the way he goes on about government and stuff."

Sydney nodded in agreement. She got up and they walked together. Before they reached the class Danny stopped her.

"Sydney, I was wondering if....if you would...," he said stammering.

"Yes?" she asked inquisitively, hoping he was going to say what she had always hoped he would say to her.

"Are you going to the basket ball game Friday?"

Sydney felt a little left down, but it was better than nothing. She usually didn't go to sports games, but this was different. She was about to say yes when she realized that was the night her father was coming home.

"I can't. My father's coming home and I'm throwing a party for him," Sydney explained.

"Oh," Danny responded, looking a little let down, "that's really nice of you."

"You could come, if you want, unless you were really wanting to go to the game," Syd asked, hoping she didn't sound as pathetic as she thought.

"That'd be cool. I'll be there," Danny said, giving her a big smile.

Just then the bell suddenly rang and all Syd could do was whisper a hurried great while they raced to their seats.

In his office, a worried look spread over the principal's face. It was obvious Sydney had a crush on this boy. That could interfere with the "debate team". If she began dating him or any other boy, she might put that above her other priorities or worse she might reveal some "debating secrets".

Just then the secretary walked in. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but there's a phone call for you."

He nodded and picked up the phone.

"Yes, this is Sloane."

* * *

"Are you out of your mind or are you just a deranged lunatic?" Francie yelled. 

Sydney knew Francie wouldn't go along with it, but she didn't think Francie'd get this upset. She didn't even know why she told her, Francie was going to be gone anyhow. But she wanted her father's party to be a success now more than ever since Danny was going to be there. She needed someone to bounce ideas off. But Francie was just squashing them.

"What makes you think you're dad's gonna be pleased with a party, when he's never been pleased with anything else you've ever done? I don't say this about most people, well hardly anyone that doesn't deserve it, but your dad, Jack, is a jacka..."

Sydney, knowing what was coming, stopped Francie before she could utter the last syllable.

"I know you don't like him, but.....well come to think of it I don't really like him either, but I do love him and I want him to be proud of me."

"I'm sure he cares about you Syd, in his own bizarre, twisted, abnormal, peculiar, demented way."

By this time Francie and Sydney were laughing so hard they didn't even hear Syd's nanny walk in the room.

"There's a call for you Sydney."

Sydney excused herself and was still out of breath from laughing when she picked up the phone.

"Hello."

"Sydney?"

Sydney didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the phone, yet it faintly sounded familiar, if that makes any sense. The woman had an accent, Sydney couldn't tell exactly what, though.

"Yes, I'm Sydney. May I ask who is speaking?"

She heard a pause on the other end and then when the voice spoke this time there was no accent.

"You probably wouldn't know me. I worked with your mother at the university."

"Really!" Sydney could hardly contain her excitement. "What was she like?" Sydney knew it sounded childish, but she couldn't help herself.

"You...you don't remember her?" The voice seemed to be faltering.

"I don't suppose you would," the voice continued. "She left...I mean died when you were six." After that the voice just stopped.

"Um, I'm glad you called, but why exactly did you?" Sydney was feeling a little bit uneasy.

"I just was wondering how you and Jack, your father, were doing?"

"I'm doing good and so is my father. He's having a birthday this Friday." Suddenly Syd had an idea. "You should come."

Syd heard a sharp intake of breath.

"I don't think that would be a good idea, Sydney."

"Please. I don't have any of my father's friends coming. I mean I'm sure he has friends, but I just don't know who they are. I'm sure he would love to see you."

"I'll think about it," then a little hesitantly the voice added, "I could tell you who some of his friends are or at least the one's I knew about."

Sydney stayed on the phone a few minutes longer, taking down names and phone numbers. When she hung up she felt better. Although they hadn't talked about her mom, she felt as if she had gotten closer to her mother, talking to a close friend of hers. She sincerely hoped the woman would come and then they could talk about her mother. She also felt good about the fact that she had a list of people to come to the party. Maybe, it would be a success after all.


	2. The Party

**Disclaimer: Yada yada, I don't own ALIAS, yada yada, my life is so sad.**

**_Ch. 2 The Party_**

"I hope you realize the sacrifice I'm making for you."

"Will, he's just my father. Its not like he's Dracula."

"You don't know that for certain. Have you ever seen him in the daytime?"

Syd and Will giggled. After an hour of begging and pleading and promising to help him take his sister tricker treating next Halloween, he consented. Now he was helping her put up streamers and set up for the party. They had a confetti fight and Will almost lost a finger when he tried to sneak some of the frosting off the cake. Finally, the guests started arriving. Sydney had been partly surprised and partly relieved when she learned that Jack had not had contact with most of his friend's in years. "At least, I'm not the only one he ignores," she thought to herself. There were now around 20 people. Except the two people she had really wanted to come hadn't show up yet, her mother's friend and of course Danny. The people she had called had gotten in touch with more people and they had spread the word that "Old Man Bristow" was having a birthday bash. Sydney was also surprised at how everybody had managed to get a present on such short notice. It had taken her several months to get her present ready. Of course, she had made this herself. She knew anything he wanted from a store he already had, as she had learned over the years. Instead, she had made a collage for him and set it in a huge frame. It had ticket stubs she had found over the years and ones he had given her when she was little so she wouldn't feel left behind. She had magazine clippings, too. She had an airplane, to symbolize his job; a tie and suit, the only piece of clothing she had seen him in the past seven or so years; a brief case, she found it depressing that most of what she knew of the man had to do with his job. But there were exceptions to the rule. She had a picture of his favorite book and his favorite actor, Bob Hope. Of course she didn't know if this had changed, but she remembered sneaking downstairs after her mother had put her to bed and watching Bob Hope movies with her dad, until her mother caught them. She also had a picture of a vanilla ice cream. She remembered when she was little that her parents would take her out for ice cream and her father would get a vanilla cone, her mother a chocolate, and she would get a twist. The joke was supposedly that she was half of each parent. But nowadays she like to think she was just like her mother. She certainly looked like her. That was one of Francie's theories, that looking at Syd reminded Jack too much of her deceased mother.

"Yo Syd!"

Will's voice snapped her back to reality.

"Can I see it one more time?"

Syd groaned. Will kept asking to see her father's gift. She got it out of the drawer where she was keeping it. "Well," she thought, "I hope my father likes it as well as Will does."

She looked back at the collage. Besides the pictures she had been thinking about there were lots more. They all bordered around the main point of the collage. A photograph, one of her favorite, of all of them. It had been taken a few months before her mother's accident. They had been at Disneyland. Syd was sitting on her father's shoulders, her mother standing beside them holding a balloon. They were all wearing Mickey Mouse ears and her father was wearing something else as uncommon as mouse ears, a smile.

"Syd, what's he doing here?" Will asked.

Syd looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, looking and feeling a bit out of place. Syd left Will without answering his question and ran to the bewildered looking Danny. He seemed to calm down a bit when he saw her, though. "One down, one to go," she thought.

"I brought a present," Danny said holding up a long, slender box, about the size of a tie.

"It's a tie. I didn't know what else to get."

"I think you did pretty good," Sydney replied.

"Sorry I'm late. My dad was late coming home from the hospital and he was the one who was going to bring me here..."

"It's okay. I'm just glad you came," Sydney interrupted.

Danny, relieved that she wasn't mad at him, continued, "So which suit does my tie go with?"

"What?" Syd asked confused.

"Which guy's your dad?"

"Oh, he's not here yet," Syd answered.

"Good," Danny replied. "I didn't want to make a bad impression."

"Why would you be worried about that?" Syd asked hopefully.

Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Will had decided to come over and investigate, since he was obviously being left out. And he hadn't come to the birthday party of the man he feared more than Chuckie the doll just to be ignored.

"Danny, I didn't know you were coming," Will said, somewhat unfriendly.

"Syd invited me."

Will tensed up. Nobody called Syd Syd except him, and well...Francie too, but that was beside the point. The point was Danny had no right to be calling her a name reserved for her closet and dearest friends.

Conveniently, though, this was the time Sydney's mother's friend decided to make her appearance. She approached Syd slowly and cautiously, ready to bolt the moment she saw Jack. A lump formed in her throat when she first saw her. She had grown up so much.

"Sydney."

Syd turned toward the voice, thinking it was another one of her father's friends. But when she saw the woman she immediately knew that it was the woman she had spoken to on the phone. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because she thought that the woman even looked like her mother. Which was strange since the woman had red, curly hair and wore far more makeup than her mother had. And she was wearing a lot of black. Her mother had never worn black. Except one night when Syd had woken up in the middle of the night to a noise and had gone downstairs to investigate. She had found her mother taking of her shoes and dressed entirely in black. She had asked her mother what was going on and her mother had explained to her that she had simply heard a noise outside and went out to see what it was. Sydney, only being five or so, was young enough to accept that and had gone back to bed.

"I'm your mother's friend. We spoke on the phone a few nights ago."

"Yes of course," Sydney said as she approached the woman. "I was wishing you would come. My father should be home anytime now and..."

Syd was cut short when she heard a car drive into the driveway. She rushed to the window and seeing it was her father, gave the kill signal for the lights and everyone hid. She was so distracted she didn't see the woman back away, towards the back door. Sydney's heart was beating. Even more than it had at her last "debating match".

The door opened and a tall figure stood in the doorway and quickly turned on the light.

"Surprise! Happy birthday!" screamed the guests.

Jack just stood there for a moment dumbfounded. Then his mouth that had been slightly open in surprise transformed in to a smile as he started greeting old friends. Sydney began to feel sick. That wasn't his real smile. And that meant he didn't like what she had done. It also meant that once again she had failed to live up to his expectations. She remembered when just a simple drawing of stick figures had made him proud. You would have thought it was the Mona Lisa. But not anymore. Sydney started to move towards the back of the group, wishing she could disappear. Another person was feeling the same way.

Irina saw her husband coming in her direction. She began to panic and felt for the door handle. She started to turn it, but it wouldn't move. She tried again. It was jammed. That meant the only way out was through the front. And there was no way she could leave without making a scene. Suddenly seized by an idea she rushed upstairs.

Although Syd had been darting in and out of the guests to escape the wrath of her father she couldn't keep it up for ever. She finally found refuge standing between Will and Danny. "Safety in numbers," she laughed nervously to herself. "He won't dare approach me while I'm with my friends." Of course, standing between her two male friends wasn't turning out to be so safe either. They started to get into an argument over baseball teams, although, as anyone could tell you the reason for their aggression wasn't because one thought the Red Sox didn't have a change at winning, but it did give Will one more reason not to like his competition.

Syd had thought she was pretty smart to hide among friends, but since her father didn't care about her friends or what their opinion was of him, it really wasn't that good a plan.

Syd saw her father approaching and wished for another intervention. Where was her mom's friend? She searched the room and couldn't find her. "Maybe she got scared off by my dad, too," Sydney sarcastically thought. She didn't know how right she was.

Her father was getting closer. She felt like a little goldfish being circled by a shark, just waiting for the kill. And here it comes.

"Sydney, I need to talk to you."

Syd, trying to stall some time struck upon an idea.

"Dad, this is Danny," she said pointing to her left. "And you already know Will." The two boys said hello and went right back to glowering at each other.

"Sydney, I'm not kidding," Jack said, the warning apparent in his voice.

Will, finally realizing his best friend was in need of his help thought of a much needed intervention.

"We need to get the cake," he said nudging Syd. "Please excuse us."

They took off and Syd made a promise to repay the favor by saving Will's life someday. They stuck the candles in the cake, which took more time than it should have, but Syd was in no hurry. While they got the cake ready Syd told Will what he had already suspected.

"If he doesn't appreciate all that you've done for him, he doesn't deserve to have you for a daughter," said Will.

Syd looked at Will. He was always there for her when she needed him. Unlike a certain party they had currently been discussing. Will and Sydney finally finished the cake and brought it out. As all the guests clapped, Jack begrudgingly blew out the candles. Then before her father could have a little chat with her, Sydney announced it was time for the presents and before Jack could disagree he was being handed presents faster than he could calculate. After opening all the gifts Jack ended up with nine ties, four fountain pens, an assortment of office supplies, a bottle of fine wine, and some odds and ends. Some of the presents his old college buddies got him would not be appropriate to mention and Jack tried to keep the children at the party from seeing. Then Sydney decided it was time to give him her present. Even if he didn't like her collage, at least he would appreciate all the effort and thought she put in to it.

Jack slide the frame out of the bag. He just gazed at it for awhile not saying anything. Then he put it back in the sack and absent-mindedly put it aside, like he was lost in a different world. At that moment Syd realized that nothing she could ever do would be good enough. She ran up to her room and closed the door, finally allowing herself to cry. Both boys saw her run up, but were quickly shooed out along with everybody else by Syd's nanny. The party was over. But there was still a guest left in the house.

Irina had seen the collage. She had also seen the look on Jack's face. She had wanted to follow Sydney into her room and comfort her, but she knew it wasn't her place. Besides now was her chance to leave. She had to take it. Quietly, she slipped down the stairs, only to run right back up at the sight of Jack coming out of his office. She ran into the closest room and shut the door. Looking around the room she realized she had made another stupid mistake. She was in Jack's bedroom and he was headed upstairs. Well, that would be an interesting situation. Maybe they'd make it into a scene in a movie after she was dead. She searched her brain for an escape plan. That's when she heard a knock on a door. "Oh shoot, he's here, I'm gonna be shot," she thought to herself. Then she realized, "Why would Jack knock on his own door? He must be outside Syd's door." In spite of the fact that it was as dumb an idea as her previous ones, she cracked open the door.

"Sydney, it's your father. I told you we need to talk."

There was no response.

"Sydney don't make me break down this door."

Irina suppressed a giggle. He was fully capable of doing that.

Sydney finally got up and went to the other side of the door. With as much courage as she had ever had standing up to her father she said, "What do you want?" In that tone that no parent likes to here. Irina realized what Syd was doing. She only hoped her daughter would live to regret it.

"I want to talk to you about the party," Jack continued, trying to suppress his annoyance.

"Yeah, what about it," came Sydney's reply.

Again Irina wished she could warn her daughter that when Jonathan Donahue Bristow was mad you do not, under any circumstance, provoke him. Too late.

"Get out here now!" Jack's voice boomed.

A meek Sydney opened the door and stood before her father. She looked as timid as a five-year-old. Jack, seeing this, tried to calm himself down, and when he spoke again it was in a lower, quieter voice.

"Why did you throw a party without my permission?" he asked.

"If I had asked your permission it wouldn't have been a surprise party."

Realizing that answer probably did make some sense and that she had asked the nanny, he decided the rephrase the question.

"Okay, why did you throw the party when you knew I was just coming home to get some sleep?"

Sydney stared down at the floor, examining the patterns in the floor. They resembled Egyptian symbols and the carpet was very colorful with tiny...

"Sydney, I asked you a question," he was beginning to get vexed again seeing that she was ignoring him.

Irina felt like running out and punching him. Couldn't he see that Syd was just trying to win his approval? Do something nice? Not that he'd know anything about that anymore.

"I....," Sydney started stuttering. "I don't know. I guess I just wanted to do something nice for your birthday."

Jack noticing that she was in pretty low spirits decided to let the matter drop. "Just don't do it again," he said turning toward his room.

Now it was Irina time in the spot light. Scanning the room, she threw idea after idea around. The bed was too low, she'd never get under it. The closet was to jammed, and anyway she was one step away from being claustrophobic. The bathroom was big enough, but he might go in there. Suddenly she remembered there was a window in the bathroom. She rushed in just as Jack got to the bedroom door. As he was walking in to the room she yanked open the window, climbed on to the garage roof the was a few feet below and jumped. Fortunately, she landed on her feet and scrambled to get off, hoping the neighbor woman, Mrs. Hingernew, didn't still live next door. By the time Jack went in to the bathroom and closed the window she was gone. Jack just dismissed the open window as one of Sydney's friend's goofing off. He took the bottle of wine and toasted himself to another year of miserable life and the years to come.


	3. Truth Be Told To Jack

**Disclaimer: You know the drill.**

**Note: This title and the title of the first chapter are from the show, except this one I kind of changed a bit to fit the story and it's kind of dumb, but.........okay I know I'm babbling, like Marshall. **

**_Ch. 3 "Truth Be Told To Jack"_**

Sydney awoke to the smell of eggs. She hurriedly got dressed and ran downstairs. Expecting to find her nanny, Linda, she called out as she turned the corner.

"Smells good Lin..."

She was cut short with the surprise of learning it was not Linda, but her father, making breakfast.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," Sydney replied a little uneasily. She wondered if this was one of his reverse psychology bits. It had to be because he never was in a good mood. Of course to any other person who didn't know him, Jack would appear to be in a indifferent mood, but for him, this was as good as it got.

"The eggs smell good."

"I'm making them the way you like them. Sunny side up."

Later Sydney realized she should have kept her mouth shut, but she hadn't realized that yet so she went ahead and said it.

"I like them scrambled. Mom was the one who liked the sunny-side up."

Almost instantaneously Jack's mood turned sour.

"Oh. I forgot," he said, thinking out loud.

"I don't mind," Sydney lied. "I'll still eat them," she offered, trying to salvage what was left of his favorable mood.

"Doesn't matter," he said as he dumped the eggs in the trash. Sydney watched as the eggs fell. The first kind thing her father had done in forever and she had ruined it. No wonder he didn't like her.

Jack, too preoccupied with something, left the room. Sydney got out some cereal and cursed herself in English, Spanish, and pig latin, the three languages she knew, as she munched her cereal.

Just as she was finishing up and had used every form of stupid she knew, her father walked back into the room and looked at the calendar. Suddenly Syd remembered something. She had been planning on waiting until after the party to tell him and since this was after the party it was as good as any time to ask him.

"Dad, the debate team is going on an over night miss...I mean match and Principal Sloane wants our parents to sign...."

Jack had been zoning out while Syd had been talking, but snapped to attention when he heard her mention Sloane.

"Did you say Sloane?" he interrupted.

"Yeah, Mr. Sloane, our principal wants.."

"Never mind what he wants, is this Arvin Sloane you're talking about?"

"I think that's his first name, but I'm not...."

"Get your bag. I'm driving you to school."

Sydney almost jumped at this announcement, but didn't want to appear excited.

"Linda usually takes me so you don't have to if you don't want...."

"Just get your coat."

Syd was ready in record breaking time. She hopped in the car with her dad and he drove off. And he was going over the speed limit.

She looked over at him. He didn't look like he was enjoying this. She thought he had wanted to see her school or something, but as she thought about it that seemed less and less likely. "Probably wants to ask my teacher's if they want to buy airplane parts."

Another record was broken that day. They got to her school in 15 minutes less than it took her nanny. She barely got out of the car before Jack pushed the lock button and raced to catch up with him.

"Where's Sloane's office?' he snapped.

"Down the hall. Why do you want to talk to my principal? I didn't do anything," Sydney said taking offense.

"Oh believe me," Jack replied. "It's not what you've done."

* * *

Jack stormed into Sloane's office, past a secretary who was about to stop him and then remembered who he was and an old lady who kept her head down low enough that it almost touched the ground, thinking that if she didn't breathe, he might not even notice her. If Jack had been his regular self he might have noticed something odd, but right now he was ready to pummel Sloane into a bloody pulp. He burst into the office. Sloane looked up from his desk smiling. No one else stomped as well as Jack did.

"Jack, I was wondering when you would come. It took longer than I expected, but...."

"You son of a bi...."

"Jack," Sloane said cutting him off. "Please refrain from using that type of language here. There are young children around who are very impressionable."

Jack leaned across the desk and thought for a moment about throttling Sloane.

"Don't tell me about influencing children. You brought Sydney in after I told you, in no uncertain terms, that she was have nothing to do with this."

"Come on Jack, surely you knew it was inevitable. She was born into this life."

"And I don't want her to go out of this world because of it," Jack replied firmly.

"If I hadn't someone else might have. I was only protecting her, Jack."

Jack was getting more steamed with each word that came out of Sloane's mouth.

"You leave that job to me. I'm her father."

"Well, you're not doing a very good job."

Jack, not being able to restrain himself any longer, reached across the table and grabbed Sloane by the shirt and then bringing Sloane up to his own face replied angrily, "You send me around the world on numerous missions every month, you burden me with mountains of paper work and make me oversee other operations, all while I continue to maintain a cover at Jenning's Aerospace and now you have the nerve to tell me that I'm not a good enough father?"

Sloane loosened himself from Jack's death grip and sat back down in his chair. Calmly, he replied, "I'm the principal of a high school. I run SD-6. I'm a member of the Alliance. Yet, even with all those responsibilities I make time to watch over Sydney, go to her activities, look over her work. I do all that and still spend every night home with my wife. What's your excuse Jack?"

* * *

Syd saw her father leave Sloane's office. She wondered what had gone on in there. For some reason, she didn't believe it had anything to do with airplane parts anymore.

A few hours later, during a painfully long lecture by their French teacher, John Breo, Syd was called to the office. "Now I'll finally know what happened," she thought.

But Sloane had only called her into to compliment her on her last mission. "I'm very proud of the work you do, Sydney. I hope you know that."

Syd had patiently listened to Sloane, but couldn't wait any longer.

"What did you and my father talk about?" she burst out.

Sloane gave her the smile grown ups give children when children ask questions beyond their comprehension or in this case, business.

"Your father hadn't known about my taking over here as principal and wanted to meet me," Sloane answered in a well rehearsed manner. "Now why don't you go back to class and then meet in the debate room after school."

Sydney nodded as she got up to leave. Something about this wasn't right. If her father had just wanted to meet her principal, why had he been acting so strange? She wanted to ask Sloane, but thought it better not to. Something was going on, and she was going to find out what it was.

Sloane watched Sydney leave his office. She was getting too suspicious. He had taught all his agents to observe what was going on around them, to question everything. Now that training could very well bite him in the butt.

After school, Sydney went to the debate room as Sloane had ordered. She saw that he was already there, along with Marshall and Dixon. Marshall was their gadget person. Otherwise know through out the school as Marshall, Electronic Geek. Some people just skipped Marshall and Electronic all together. Dixon was her partner. He was one of the popular kids. He was on the football team and would probably be the quarter back next year when he was a senior. He was a couple of years older than her, but she still considered him one of her closest friends, almost like a big brother. And if anyone ever picked on Sydney Bristow they would have Marcus Dixon and his entire posse to answer to. "He takes better care of me than my father does," Sydney thought bitterly as she sat down at her regular seat.

Sloane, who sat at the head of the table, motioned for them all to observe the monitor behind him.

"This is Li Chang. He directs the private school in Fuzhou, China where you two will be going on Wednesday. He is also the owner of about a quarter billion dollars worth of drugs that he sells over a vast area. Fuzhou, is a major exporter of lacquerware. We're convinced that Chang is sending his products to his clients, passing the drugs off as lacquer and is using the school to store them until he can get them to his clients . You'll go in as rich Americans who are interested in becoming foreign exchange students and are looking for a school to attend next year. All the information on your aliases are in the folders. Marshall?"

Marshall, who had been fiddling with his tie during the entire discussion, got up and began what Sydney knew was going to be a long, yet comical presentation.

"Okay. You're going in as potential students, right, so you're probably gonnna take down a lot of notes or at least look like you're taking notes. I don't know if you like to doodle or what, but these notebooks aren't ordinary notebooks that you'd buy at the store before school starts when they have those sales and you can get like 10 notebooks for like under five dollars or something, hey do you guys ever do that? Anyway, the paper part of it is normal, but the spiral wires, they're actually electronic wires. These puppies can be unwound and hooked up to any electronic machine and transmit files straight to you computer. And of course you really don't want to lug a computer around, besides that'd look a little suspicious and if you had a computer you wouldn't need notebooks and then I would have to redo everything for you gadgets so here's your computer," he said holding up a fat green neon pen. "This one's for Dixon. I made a pink one for you Sydney because pink's more girlish and well you're a girl and so...."

"Marshall," Sloane said trying to stop the teenager from embarrassing himself.

"Yeah, okay," Marshall started again. "You push the top once for the pen to come out so you can write and you push it again for the pen to go back, you know so it doesn't dry out. Sounds like a normal pen right? Here's where its a little different. You twist here," he said holding the pen for all to see. "And then connect the wire to the bottom of the pen, you wanna make sure the pen is inside at this time, and the wire uses the pen to transmit info to the chip inside the pen. Cool isn't it?" Marshal finished. Not getting a reply he continued, "Then I have here a lip gloss. Sorry Dixon, not for you." Dixon and Syd exchanged amused glances and Marshall, content that one of his jokes had been funny, moved on. "Of course this isn't a lip gloss you'd put on when your lip are dry or you want to impress a guy....hey that rhymes. Did you guys hear that....dry and guy they rhyme...... anyway the lip gloss in here is lethal. One sniff and you're out like a light. So whatever you do don't smell it. I had my pet mouse, Obiwon, hey you know about him... I told you that story about how he got loose in the house and my mother was like aaahhh! and screaming and...." Marshal, seeing that his principal was about to yell at him got back on the subject. "I had Obiwon smell it and he was asleep for hours, but since he's a mouse it worked different, a human would only be asleep for 10 to 15 minutes, so just don't sniff it."

Syd left the debate room with a headache and a stomachache. The headache was because of Marshal and the stomachache was from worrying about the mission. Although, Syd had gone on many missions before, she had never gone overseas. The only time she had been out of the country was when her father and mother had taken her to Europe and she hardly remembered that. She looked at her passport that had she had found in her folder. "Kate Jones," she mumbled. That was a new one.

* * *

**_I just want to thank all my reviewers. You guys are what makes this worthwhile._**

**_To Erin: Thanks for being my first reviewer ever!! And as long as long as someone wants to read it I'll keep posting it._**

**_To Scary-Girly: I will love you forever too, for giving me a review like that! It makes me feel all warm and mushy inside._**

**_To Starry: I know how you feel! I wanted to give Syd a hug all through the 3rd Season, so I thought I'd go back a few years and try to give her a better life. (Spoiler: And more family that loves her.)_**

_**To thehoodedsweatshirt: I'm glad you think the story is believable and don't worry Irina will be back. Love the name by the way.**_


	4. Operation Fuzhou

**Disclaimer:** I am not J.J. and I don't own Alias. If I did I would not have time to post stories on this site because I would be basking in the glory of my own brilliance on my private yacht, near my home on Aruba.

_**Ch. 4 "Operation Fuzhou"**_

Syd looked in the mirror. No average American teenager wore this much makeup, not rich ones, not ugly ones, not even Mary Kay test subjects, yet she had to because apparently the typical, wealthy, American girl looked like a circus clown. "Even my dad would interfere if he saw me looking like this," she thought.

Besides a ton of makeup, she was also wearing a Britney Spears like outfit, plaid skirt, pig tails and all, along with what seemed like a whole pack of chewing gum in her mouth. Dixon didn't look that much better. Although he lacked pigtails and a mini-skirt, he had a loud t-shirt and so much gangsta jewelry that it looked like he was about to tip over. His hat was off to the side, a fad that had died a long time ago. Syd had heard that the guys that came up with their gadgets and _costumes_ as she and Dixon fondly called them, hadn't seen sunlight for years. She was starting to believe it.

Sydney checked herself once again in the mirror and walked out of the bathroom and into the main room of the plane. She still wasn't use to flying. The first time she had flown she had almost thrown up, but had luckily conquered her fear before she upchucked. Dixon, however, wasn't so lucky. It took him his third trip before he was able to look out the window without running for the bathroom. Syd looked over at her partner. He was trying to do his math homework, while listening to some deafly loud music. And considering his pencil was tapping along with the song and his head was swinging back and forth to the beat, Syd determined he wasn't getting very much accomplished. She looked toward her own stack of homework. She almost wished she had taken Sloane up on his offer. But she knew it would be unfair for her to get special treatment because of what she did. Although, it would be handy if she didn't have to hand her homework in as early as everyone else. Of course, then she'd have to explain to Francie and Will why her paper on the evolution of mankind wasn't due for another two days. And the excuse of being on the "debate team" wasn't a very good one.

They finally landed in Fuzhou. Syd braced herself for another perilous and dangerous mission and chomped the gum so furiously that the man on the other end of her communicator told her to please keep the noise down. She and Dixon entered the school and Syd went into spoiled, American, spends Daddy's credit cards and runs up excruciatingly large bills, mode. Dixon began to saunter in his steps obviously humming a rap song to get into the mood.

As they approached the office, a Chinese man with an Armani suit and a red silk tie approached them.

"Welcome," he said in suspiciously good English. "I am glad to meet both of you." As he said this he reached out his hand.

Sydney ignored it and twirled her finger through her hair looking around at the building. Dixon grabbed the man's hand and purposely tried to perform a hand shake he and his friends did. Since the man was new to this kind of greeting it didn't go very well, which was expected.

After regaining custody of his hand, the man smiled and said, "I am Principal Chang. Please, let me show you around."

Syd and Dixon exchanged amused glances. So far everything was going as planned.

They walked around the school for awhile, going in different classrooms that were not holding class at the time. Syd made a mental note of each of the rooms that were not classrooms, as they could be where the drugs were being stored. After they had seen about half of the school, Sydney got ready for phase two.

"Excuse me, Mr. Ching. But is there a bathroom in this joint?"

Mr. Chang, not seeming surprised at her messing up his name, pointed towards the nearest bathroom and told her she could meet them in the music room. Sydney started toward where he had pointed and only altered her course after she saw them turn the corner. Then she ran as fast and as quietly as she could to the computer lab they had recently gone by. She found it empty and removed the wire from her notebook, hooked it up to the school's computer and her pen. Then she sat down, cracked her knuckles, and hoped Mr. Chang had minimal security. She found the files easy enough and hacking in to it was easier than Algebra 1. She downloaded the files, removed all evidence of her tampering and scampered down the hall to meet Mr. Druglord and homeboy.

She entered the room and as Dixon was still alive, there was a good chance Chang was unaware of what she had just done and was just as dumb as his password.

Dixon and she suffered for another fifteen minutes before Dixon began his performance.

He was so good at it, Sydney forgot for the moment that he was suppose to be having a seizure. But this moment of forgetfulness made the look on her face even more convincing. Chang, who looked like he was about to have an attack himself, hurriedly got out his cell phone and called the nurse. He couldn't risk bringing attention to himself and his low profile school by sending someone to the hospital. He only hoped that the dumb, American boy, with the gaudy jewelry didn't die. That wouldn't look good.

While Chang was growing hysterical, Sydney put on such a good charade of worry that no one would have ever suspected that she was still assessing the situation not currently at hand. If she hadn't known what the school was really a front for she would have been surprised why Chang's cell phone wasn't working. But considering that SD-6 had blocked all communiqué, strictly for this use, she already knew all this. Chang, whiter than a polar bear by now, ran out of the room to get the nurse. Once it was clear Syd and Dixon leapt into action.

"I'll check the west side, you check the east one," Dixon told her as they separated.

As Sydney headed toward her destination she stated singing in her head. "Here we are now going to the east side. I pick up my friends and we start to ride......"

* * *

Waiting stinks. Especially when you've waited for eight years. And especially when you're stuck waiting in the cafeteria. 

Irina knew she was being stupid. She had been stupid to contact Sydney in the first place and even stupider to actually show up at the party. Now she was at the school, washing dishes of hundreds of kids, including her own and in doing that, working for the very man that her husband also worked for. "Except Jack probably doesn't get wrinkled hands when he does his dirty work. I do clean work and I still get wrinkles."

Coming here didn't even make any sense. The most she would be able to do was see Sydney eat. And for that small time each day she had to wear layer apon layer of makeup, the itchiest wig that was ever manufactured, and on top of that she hated cleaning. Then there was the dangerous factors. One: she was working for Arvin Sloane and that fact by itself scared her because Sloane was just plain scary. Two: Although, her source had indicated that Jack hadn't set foot in this school since he enrolled Sydney, apparently he had chosen the day she had come herself, to make an appearance. She had been waiting patiently outside Sloane's door, waiting to apply for a job as a lunch lady when Jack had come rocketing through, looking like he was ready to put a bullet through someone's head. She had seen that look before when they had been doing tax bills and she was so glad she was not on the receiving line of that anger. Considering who ran this school though, she was surprised Jack hadn't darkened the door before. Three: Suppose Jack did darken the door again? She might not be as lucky as she had been last time. But then he thought she was dead and there was very little chance he'd recognize her in this get up. Besides if he knew nothing about who she really was, he had to at least know that whether she was Laura Bristow or Irina Derevko, washing dishes was just disgusting.

* * *

Since Jack had found out the truth, he hadn't slept. He was trying to figure out how he could have missed it, how Sloane had recruited Sydney without his knowing. Was he so uninvolved in Sydney's life that he hadn't realized what was going on? Was he that bad a father? The questions plagued him. It reminded him of another time in his life when he had questioned his choices in life, among other things. What he wouldn't give for a scotch right now. But he was on a flight to Singapore, to represent Jennings Aerospace and obtain codes for SD-6. Drinking right now would be dangerous and foolhardy. Jack ordered one anyway.

* * *

"And how you shoved that lip gloss up that guy's nose was awesome!" 

Dixon was relating their mission to Marshall. Sydney felt that he was giving her way to much credit. After all, he had been the one that had seen the guards come in and who had held them off why Syd had destroyed the drugs. Then she had helped Dixon fight off Chang's goons and that was when she had remembered the lip gloss Marshall had given her. She took it and thrust it into one of the goon's nostrils. He passed out instantaneously. Next, Dixon and she did some Jackie Chan moves to get rid of the rest of the opposition. When that didn't work, Sydney pushed a crate on top of the guards. Then the young spies had ran out of the building to the extraction point as fast as Syd's heels would allow.

Sloane walked into the room just as Dixon finished his story. A few moments later the bell rang. Syd was about to walk out the door when Sloane stopped her.

"Sydney, you did excellent work in Fuzhou. You're a credit to the CIA."

Sydney nodded and continued on to her class. She wondered why he had only said something to her and not Dixon. She pondered this while she walked to her locker.

"Hey Sydney!"

Sydney turned toward the voice and was surprised and pleased to find the voice belonged to Danny.

"Hey." Syd knew it was a lame response, but it was the best she could come up with. She wondered if her uneasiness around the male gender had anything to do with her father. But then she wasn't uneasy around Will, Dixon, Marshall, or Principal Sloane, well, sometimes she was uneasy around Sloane, but that was for another reason altogether. But besides those people, she really didn't associate with guys.

"Um Sydney, I was thinking....if you're not planning another birthday party or something...would you like to go to a movie on Friday?" he finished somewhat confidently.

"I'd love too," Syd answered trying hard not to sound as extactic as she really was.

"Good. That'd be great. I guess I better get to class then."

"Me too."

They both just stared at each other for a bit and then they started to feel self conscious and they parted company. Syd could hardly contain her excitement. She couldn't wait to tell Francie.

* * *

**_Thanks again to those who reviewed. I'm trying to post these chapters as quick as I can, but unfortunetly this isn't a paying job. If only......._**

_**Anyhoo, to sweetsouthernbell07: In response to your** "**coughvaughncoughcough" it won't before a while, but I'm working on it. And I also wish I had a Marshall around to fix my computer when it does "funky" things that aren't so funky.**_

**_To sweetytweety013: That's a cute name!!! and thanx for the review._**

**_To morrisseylover: Yeah, I know Jack is sour, but in an upcomming chapter he's not going to be. He's going to be in a completely different state. (Hee!)_**


	5. Drunken Fathers and Lying Daughters

**Disclaimer: Does anybody really care if I write this?**

**Note: This chapter is kinda broken up, but certain things in this chapter will come in to play later.**

**_Ch. 5 "Drunken Fathers and Lying Daughters"_**

The stewardess was starting to get really pissed. No matter what she did, the passanger would not follow her wishes, not matter how much she smiled and asked politely. She was this close to shaking the man silly. He was so drunk he probably wouldn't even be able to remember it, so there was no danger of him suing her.

"Sir, please get off the plane. We're in Los Angeles and we need to let the passengers board the plane for the next flight," she asked so sweetly she almost puked.

"Did you know that my life is a living hell?" The passanger motioned for her to come closer. "Do you know what I go through everyday? I'd tell you, but that would be stupid. And I'm not stupid, even though some of the things that have happened to me may indicate otherwise." Even though he was drunk, very drunk to be precise, Jack was still able to pronuciate better than a lot of people who haven't had a drop at all.

Finally, she just gave up and called security. There is no way to describle how funny it was, seeing Jonathan Donahue Bristow being carried off the plane by two guards. At first he refused to be escorted off the plane and if he hadn't been so drunk he might have gotten sued for assaulting a guard. Even though he probably could have gotten away from them, he must have realized that it would just be better to go along with them and not cause anymore trouble. Drunk as he was, he knew how Sloane hated attention brought to one of his agents. And Jennings Aero Space wouldn't be paticulary happy about it either.

A taxi took him home. It was only a 45 minute drive to his home, but it took about twice that long considering Jack's state and that the driver didn't understand English very well. And when you're drunk it's hard to speak another language.

* * *

Syd arrived home and ran to tell her nanny about what had happened. She went by her father's study, on her way to Linda's room and was shocked to find her father. He was in his desk chair, asleep, holding a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage. He looked horrible and as Sydney got closer she discovered he smelled just as bad as he looked.

Wondering if he was dead, she reached to poke him and then jumped back when he awoke with a start.

"Sydney, what are you doing here?" Jack asked furiously, mostly mad at himself for letting her catch him in this state.

"I was looking for Linda." Syd replied meekly.

"Well, she wouldn't be in my study would she?" Jack shouted.

"I'm sorry," Syd said as she fled the room.

Jack looked at the fleeing form of his daughter as she rushed up the stairs and then looked at the empty bottle. He threw it into the waste basket with disgust and then fell back into his chair. "Good going Bristow."

* * *

"Syd wait!"

Sydney slowed down her pace and let Will catch up to her.

"Hey, I was wondering if I could borrow your notes for the science test tomorrow?" Will asked.

Syd absent mindedly handed him her notebook.

"So, Syd," Will continued, "I was thinking we would grab something to eat after school and then go over to the aracade for awhile..."

Will's words made Sydney stop in her tracks. She had forgotten that Will and she had made plans for that night when Danny had asked her out. She didn't want to hurt Will, but she really wanted to go with Danny.

"Um, I don't think I'll be able to hang out with you tonight. My father is home and we're going to have dinner together."

"Good. You and you're dad should spend time together," Will responded a little let down, but glad that Sydney's father was paying attention to her for once. He knew how much it meant to her. "Besides I was getting tired of you beating me at PacMan."

As they walked to class Sydney started feeling lots of different emotions. She was happy that she could still go on her date and not hurt Will's feelings, but sad and a little bit scared that she was getting so good at lying to people. She had hardly even thought about it before she said her excuse. "Well, it's just good practice for my job," Sydney thought, trying to comfort herself.

She ran home after school to got ready for her date with Danny. She tried on every outfit she had and finally decided on a red t-shirt that said KISS ME on it, secretly hoping and afraid at the same time that Danny might follow the message, and a short jean skirt. She left her hair down and put on her favorite necklace, a heart shaped locket that had been her mothers. She raced down the stairs and nearly knocked into her father who was surprisingly, still home. They hadn't talked since she had found him drunk in his study the night before and both were reluctant to start the converstation. It didn't help that Jack noticed the locket. Sydney saw an emotion flicker across his face and then dissepear. He was marveling at how much she looked like her mother...and how if not prevented the same thing might end up happening to her. He tensed at this thought and then regained his cold, impersonal composure.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" He said in a manner that gave Syd impression that he really didn't care, but wanted to know so he could give his opinion on the matter. She also realized that her father, even though he wasn't a very good one, would probably have the same reaction as most typical fathers on the subject of their daughters dating: no.

"I'm going to the arcade with Will," Sydney lied, although she found it harder to lie to him than it had been with anyone else.

"Awfully dressed up to go to the arcade," Jack stated, trying to scrutinize the situation.

"I just felt like it, that's all," Sydney replied. She was beginning to wonder if it was worth all the trouble it was causing. Then she thought about Danny. "Yep it's all worth it," she thought. She could see her dad was still hesitant so she quickly added, "Linda said it was okay, unless you have a problem with it or you had something else planned." Since she knew he didn't have something planned he couldn't very well use that as an excuse and since Linda was pretty much raising her, he couldn't exactly complain.

"Of course I don't have a problem with it," he said in a matter of fact kind of voice.

Syd didn't give him time to say anything else and rushed out the door. Jack went to the liquor cabinet, examined the contents, removed a bottle of brandy, and settled in for a long, cold, lonely night.

* * *

After debating for a few minutes, Syd and Danny finally settled on a movie. He, being a polite gentleman and wanting to impress her after suggesting a horror movie earlier, bought the drinks and popcorn. They settled into seats about five rows from the front and talked quietly as the previews, well... previewed. What they didn't know, what Syd with all her spy training had not detected, was that someone, sitting in the back of the theater, was watching.

After Will had gotten home, he realized he hadn't returned Syd's science notes to her. The test was tomorrow and he knew she would freak if she didn't have them to study that night. He decided to go over to Syd's house to return the notes, so Sydney wouldn't kill him the next day.

He usually just walked into her house, but since her father was home he figured he should knock. Will was just about to turn around and go home when the door swung open, almost hitting Will in the face. Standing in the doorway, towering over him stood the menacing, intimidating, and just plain scary Mr. Bristow or as Will liked to call him, Count Dracula. It made perfect sense! That's why he never smiled or showed his teeth, because it would reveal his fangs. When he had told Syd this she had just laughed, but Francie had seriously believed him. Of course, that was when they were seven, but it was still fun to tease her about. To this day she had never gone trick or treating at Syd's house if Jack was there.

"Hello, Mr. Bristow. I'm Will, Syd's friend and I just wanted to give her the notes I borrowed," Will was practically shaking the whole time and I don't know if it was the brandy or what, but Jack seemed to be enjoying it.

"Yes, I know who you are. I'll see that she gets them when she gets home," Jack responded. Then after seeing Will's puzzled face and letting the situation sink in he realized something with this scenario was a little bit off. "Isn't she suppose to be out with you?"

"We were going to, but then she said that you and she were going to have dinner tonight," Will answered, still not comprehending the situation fully.

Now that the effects of the alcohol were starting to wear off, Jack was racking his brain for what could have happened. He didn't think she had another mission, but what other reason would she have for lying?

Will's brain was finally kicking in and he too was trying to come up with an explanation for Syd's weird behavior.

Jack, not being too in vogue with what teen girls wore, decided to ask Will. Although he hated asking for help, especially that of a fourteen year old boy, he was desperate for a lead.

"She was dressed up, if that means anything," Jack stated. When Will looked at him strangely, he figured he had hit upon something.

"I have to get home," Will fibbed quickly. As pissed off as he was at Syd right now he didn't want to get her in trouble with her dad, especially, as he hoped was the case, that he was wrong. And if he wasn't, he wanted to yell at her before her dad got to her.

Jack could see through the boy's attempt to lie, but decided it was probably a waste of energy anyway. He would go on his own hunch and if it turned out to be true atleast he'd have someone to blame his unrest upon. And then he could also blame Sloane for his drinking binge that would follow.

* * *

Will scanned the room. He had ruled out the scary movies and the animated flicks. Instead he had opted for either a love comedy or a sci-fic flick as his best chance to find Syd. He had figured that if Syd had decided to stab him in the back and go out with that Red Sox hating Danny, they'd probably have gone to a movie. Will had tried this theater first, since it was the closest one and had told the understanding usher his predicament, only changed a little bit of the story and she had agreed to help him. Being one of Syd's best friends he found her in the first room he went to and then he ran back to get a ticket and took a seat a few rows from the back. During the whole film Syd didn't realize that she had more stalkers than the main character in the movie.

While Will had followed his lead and found what he had been looking for, Jack took an entirely different direction and found something he did not particulary want to find. He found Marshall.

Marshall had stayed after school to clean up an experiment that had gone awry. He had just finished up when Jack had poked his head in the door and asked Marshall if he knew where Principal Sloane was, as he was not in his office. Marshall, happy to be of help, led Jack down the various halls to the meeting room, where Sloane sometimes occupied himself.

The five minute walk to the conference room was the longest walk Jack had ever partaken on. Once Marshall had found out who he was, the computer genuis had launched into a lengthy and very hard to follow one-sided conversation.

"Your daughter is very cool, sir. Everybody loves her....well, I don't love her as in I want to date her or marry her...I mean not that I wouldn't be lucky to....I just consider her a friend...she doesn't perchance talk about me, does she?"

Jack gave Marshall one of his infamous looks, thinking the whiz kid with even less social skills than he, would shut up. But then considering who he was talking to, he wasn't so lucky.

"So," Marshall continued. "I take that as a no."

* * *

By the time the pair arrived at the conference room, Jack was about ready to squeeze Marshall to the point of bursting and see if he still talked. Jack wondered how anything that involved Marshall ever got done. He bet that the kid aggravated Sloane on occasion. Maybe he had a use after all.

Sloane was sitting at the head of the table, looking over some document strewn across his desk. As Jack approached him, a grin slowly spread across Sloane's face. He always enjoyed his confrontations with Jack. It was always so easy to provoke him.

"What do I owe this unexpected pleasure to?" Sloane said as he rose from his desk.

Jack met Sloane's smirk with a cold smile of his own. Jack, never one to make small talk, went right to the point.

"You wouldn't happen to know where my daughter is, would you?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the smile on Sloane's face fell.

"I take it that you don't know where she is?" Sloane asked uneasily.

Jack took note of the alarm on his boss's face and realized that Sloane didn't know anything, unless he was an even better actor than Jack had given him credit for. Now he wished he had made that little friend of Syd's spill his suspicions.

"It's probably nothing," Jack said casually while trying to back out of the room. He didn't want Sloane involved in Sydney's life anymore than he already was.

Sloane of course saw through this little charade. "Jack, you wouldn't have come to me if you weren't really worried. Why don't you tell me what's going on? You know you can trust me, especially in Sydney's case."

Left with no other choice, Jack told Sloane the details of the situation. As the story unfolded the look on Sloane's face became more troubled. This didn't help the situation. After they had talked for awhile Sloane advised Jack to go home in case Sydney called and that he would contact security. Jack left the office with mixed feelings. If something had happened to her, he knew that telling Sloane was the best thing to do. But if she was just doing that whole teenage rebellion thing, than he hoped he hadn't ruined her chances as having any privacy.


	6. More Angst and Babbling

**Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or Michael Vartan. Of course, if I had to choose you know I would choose Alias, no question about it........well, I probably would......maybe.....nah....**

**_Ch. 6 "More Angst and Babbling"_**

Sydney and Danny were walking out of the movie giggling, when she spotted someone in the shadows. She told Danny she had left something in the seat and that she'd meet him outside the movie theater. He gave her a weird look, but did as she asked and left. Sydney walked down the isle pretending she was oblivious to the lurking figure.

She bent down to retrieve the nonexistent object and when she heard a noise behind her she spun around and almost knocked a surprised Will unconscious.

"OW!! Syd, what the hell?"

"Will, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you," Sydney said, trying desperately to explain why she had smacked Will up the side the head.

"So, do you always do that to people who come up behind you?" Will said, while attempting to stop the stars from spinning around and around.

Sydney's weak answer that he had surprised her didn't fly very well. By this time Sydney had realized that if Will was here he had probably seen her with Danny and that he knew that she had lied to him.

Will, by now, had somewhat recovered and only saw a few constellations whirling around his head.

"It's a good thing I came instead of your father or you would really be groun..."

Sydney stopped Will in mid sentence. "What do you mean instead of my father?"

Will, looking a little sheepish, told her of his encounter with the dark lord of the night.

Sydney raced toward the doors, not giving Will a chance to yell at her for duping him.

She ran past Danny and explained to him that she had to go. Danny, a bit bewildered, nodded and watched as she started running breakneck fast down the street, surprisingly agile in her skirt. Then even more baffling was the fact that Will came darting out behind her. Danny, figuring it was probably none of his business, started to walk home. Then deciding otherwise, took off toward Sydney's house.

* * *

Jack Bristow was doing something he knew Sydney would not be keen on. He was reading her diary. And so far he wasn't learning what he wanted to. But he was learning.

_Dear Diary,_

_I don't know why my father has to be such a monster. I use to laugh at Will's jokes, but he seems closer to Count Dracula than a regular human being. He never smiles, he never tells me that he's proud of me or anything that would prove he cared anything for me. The last time I remember him smiling was when my mom was alive. Everything would have been better if she hadn't died. I know it sounds bad, but if I had to choose, I would have had my mother survive the crash instead of my dad._

Jack felt as if he had received a blow to the heart. His own daughter wished that he was dead. She would rather have a deceitful, lying, backstabbing woman be alive than him. Well, if that was how she felt than he would give Sydney her wish. He'd stay out of her life.

All of the sudden the front door slammed open and closed. He quickly put the diary back in its supposedly hidden place and met his daughter on her way up the stairs.

"Dad, I'm so sorry. I forgot about..."

Jack held his hand up to stop Sydney from continuing her excuse.

"It's alright."

Sydney had expected him to explode or implode or do something. But here he was telling her it was okay that she had lied to him, and her friend. Was it that he didn't care enough to roar at her? But he had yelled at her for much less. Sydney examined her father. His usual poker face was replaced by something else. It reminded her of the way he had looked after her mother's death. If he wasn't who he was, she would almost swear that he looked like he was about to cry.

"I'll be leaving in the morning," her father said as he turned around and ascended the stairs. Sydney watched as he went into his room and closed the door, looking somehow smaller and older.

A few moments after that Will burst into the house. He saw Sydney sitting on the bottom step, head in her hands. His anger fell away instantly and went to comfort her. Sydney looked up at him and burst into tears. Will let her cry on his shoulder for awhile.

Although Sydney was a much faster runner than both boys and had even had a head start as well, both boys had made surprisingly good time. Will had arrived at Sydney's house a little while after she had and Danny had been just behind Will. That means that when Danny had come up to the Bristow's door he had seen Will and Sydney through the window.

Now Danny had just ran all this way to find out why this girl he liked had ran out on him and why her best male friend had come out of the theater and ran after her. So forgive him for being a little furious at seeing Will holding a crying Sydney. He thought about breaking down the door, but that was a little too dramatic for him and normal people just didn't do that. So while he raged and foamed at the mouth he waited until he could do something. He didn't know what quite yet, but that wouldn't stop him from doing it.

Another person was watching Sydney cry. Jack had been in his room when he had heard the door slam again. For a moment he thought Sydney had left. He sighed and thought about going after her. That was when he heard her cry. He opened the door and was startled to see Will sitting with Sydney. He quickly closed the door and let out another sigh. Was he really a monster?

* * *

Back at the evil Sloane's lair the phone rang, as it did every now and again. Security had located Miss Bristow quite easily considering Sloane had hired a personal tail to ensure his favorite student's safety. Security gave its report and Sloane was none too happy about it.

* * *

After Sydney had reassured Will numerous times that she was fine, he finally decided to go, but only after he made her swear that she would help him baby sit Amy next Tuesday.

He walked out the door, still upset that she had deserted him for Danny, but glad that he wouldn't have to watch his little sister alone. He had walked about a block when he heard footsteps behind him. Thinking it was Sydney he turned around and received another blow to the face. This just wasn't Will's day.

Will looked up from his position on the ground and was astounded to see the owner of the smack was Danny.

"What's the matter with you? Are you crazy?" Will said, as he tried to get up.

Danny couldn't answer because he was still taken back that he had actually punched someone.

"I, um I saw you....with Sydney...I," Danny sputtered.

"Duh, that's because we're friends. Friends spend time with each other," Will answered back angrily. He had took just as much as he could from this guy.

"Well, I thought you were.... I thought you were trying to steal Sydney from me," Danny answered.

Will responded with disgust. "She's not yours. You make it sound like you own her. You only went out to one movie. Did you think that made her your girlfriend?" he finished angrily.

"You like her don't you?" Danny questioned.

"That's none of your business!" Will retorted.

The two boys both stared at each other until Will, whose temper had been increasing rapidly since he had see Danny with Sydney, finally let loose. They hit and missed and hit and didn't miss and it all resulted in a black eye, a bloody nose, and a few bruises. The fight ended when a neighbor, Mr. Harman, pulled the two away from each other. Now Mr. Harman was a large African American man who had recently retired from a military career and Will, who had thought Mr. Bristow was the most intimidating man he had ever seen, changed his mind. After Mr. Harman gave the boys a talkin' to, they scattered like squirrels.

* * *

Marshall poked his head out of the conference room, scanning the halls for someone he knew would be coming. Marshall was very excited. Principal Sloane was currently out of town, so he would get to brief Sydney on the mission himself. Besides the fact that this was a huge responsibility, he didn't mind spending time with Sydney alone. Well, to be perfectly honest he was petrified. He knew he'd screw up even more than usual and then she would think that he was even dorkier than he really was. While Marshall was deep in thought, pondering whether he should have worn the red tie today instead of the blue one, Sydney came down the hall. Now that she was approaching, Marshall quickly got his stuff ready and propped his chin up on top of his hand, trying to look deep in thought. He thought the pose made him look intellectual. Sydney just thought he was day dreaming.

"Marshall?"

"Hey Sydney. Um," he said scrounging around for the papers. "Here's the outline of your mission," he stated as he handed her the folder.

Sydney flipped through the folder and nodded, anxious to get to track practice. After what seemed like an eternity, Marshall began.

"Ok, so you know how a lot of people are absent minded. Me for instance.... ," Marshall said raising his hand. "Like one day I was walking along and I realized I...."

"Marshall, I have to get to practice soon," Syd reminded him.

"Oh yeah, of course. You're on the....where you run...."

Sydney nodded.

"Anyway people like me get little pouches to put pencils and pens and stuff in so we don't forget anything. Besides they're much cooler than putting them in your pocket or...," he stopped when he saw Syd look at her watch. Then faking a TV salesman voice he continued, "Okay, so today you get not only this beautiful pouch complete with this rhinestone design, but besides looking fabulously funky, the big jewel in the middle is a camera lens. Flip it open and press this dark gem here on the top and wala! It's a Kodak moment! But that's not all. Call right now," Marshall brought his hand up to his face and pretended his hand was a phone. "Ring, ring....and you also get a marvelous calculating calculator. Now this isn't a normal calculator you'd use when you want to know the square root of 85 times 45,000 minus the square root of 23. It's 1,955.760334 by the way." Seeing Sydney looking unimpressed he continued, "This nifty piece of plastic and wire enables you to download files with the touch of a button. This one actually," he said, turning the calculator so Sydney could see which one he meant.

"I thought of it myself. Who would ever think pressing a delete button would get you info? You think it'd be the enter button or....."

"Marshall how do I use it?" Sydney said interrupting the rambling Marshall.

"Oh yeah, that's a good idea 'cuz otherwise you couldn't get the ....okay I'm babbling again. You just set it on the computer, press delete and it's smooth sailing... unless you get caught, but I guess you already know that. So on to the last of my creations." Marshall tried to do a evil genius laugh, but it didn't fly.

"Looks like a common eraser right? Like when you're writing a note about how horrid your teacher is and the teacher says," Marshall began to mimic a high pitched, squeaky female voice, "Marshall, what have you got?" Then returning to his normal voice. "So you're trying desperately to erase all the bad things you wrote and...." Marshall suddenly became aware of Sydney staring at him. "The eraser admits a heavy gas. You conveniently drop it in a room full of people and when you're far enough away you take this," he said while pulling out a pen. "It's one of those multi color pens. Push this you have blue, pink, purple, green," he told Sydney as he pushed each color down. "Push this baby," he said pointing to the black. "This one activates the eraser."

* * *

**_This was probably one of my favorite chapters. I love writing Marshall and considering I actually know someone a lot like him, it's not hard to do._**

**_To mm and sweetsouthernbell07: I love Vaughn too, and write now I'm trying to figure out how to introduce him, but I'm kinda stuck on a certain problem that I'll want everyone's opinion on after that chapter is posted._**

**_To Drama Queens Rule: Yes they do rule and that was Irina on the phone. And you are definetly not boring me to tears by reviewing so much. The more the merrier!_**

**_To Rach5: I'm glad you like the way Syd and Jack interact. I'm slowly trying to get them to have a better relationship and there will be a turn in the tide pretty soon. (Hee tide! I didn't realize it until after I'd writen it, but that was a clue! Just think of a movie with Victor Garber in it that has a Jack character.)_**


	7. Jack Gets Inebriated

**Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or the line I took from the movie "Galaxy Quest" that's in here. Can you spot it?**

_**Ch. 7 "Jack Gets Inebriated"**_

Although parents claim to be perfect, no one ever believes them. And that night Jack wasn't helping prove that claim. It had been another particularly long day and Sloane, "the incompetent, idiotic imbecile" as Jack liked to refer to him when he was drunk and also when he was sober, had again intervened in his private life. Sloane felt that Jack had spent too much time away and that he should be home with Sydney. But just because he would be home didn't mean the work would lessen. It only meant that instead of busting heads, defusing bombs, and trying not to come home in a wooden box, he would be doing paper work, over seeing employees at the office, and the ever fun interrogations. Compared to that, getting shot sounded like fun.

The bar owner knew "Bottomless Bristow" all too well. Mickey's had been the bar he had frequented after his wife died and pretty much ever since then. The owner also knew that Jack was the one drunk you did not throw out of your bar or should I say couldn't throw out. He had tried once and let's just say black does not go well with his wardrobe. Jack had of course apologized the next day and nothing like that had happened since. One of the reasons was because after awhile the drinks became more water and less scotch. Once it came to the point where Jack sat and drank a glass of water and never knew the difference. If that doesn't tell you how gone someone is I don't know what does. Every time he came in the owner was sure he would have to end up calling the hospital because of alcohol poisoning. But what good CIA agent can't take over the legal limit?

* * *

Sydney was petrified. No more like petrified wood. Things didn't scare her easily. Well, aside from her father and the fear of water, she was totally calm. Until now. This had been her first mission without Dixon. He had broken his arm during a basketball game and was out of commission for awhile. So she had went to England alone. No problem. Marshall had given her the down low on the gadgets and she had read the specifications on the mission, her cover, the place, the people, so she had been fully prepared for anything, or so she had thought.

The trip had started of well enough. They had been within 20 or so minutes of their destination when things first started going wrong. She had been doing her homework when little bleeping noises from the front of the plane had distracted her. Being an agent and naturally curious, she had gone up to the pilot's control room. She found the two pilot's in hysterics. On one of the screens there was a red thingy moving toward the green thingy and she was pretty sure they were the green thingy. She was even more sure that the red thingy wasn't a good thingy.

After that everything happened so fast. The plane was hit by the red thingy which turned out to be a baby missile. One of the pilots was taken out by the hit and the other one seriously injured and trying desperately to gain control of the plain. Syd rushed back and was trying to collect her wits when she heard more beeping. She rushed back to the control room and saw a familiar red light headed towards them. The co-pilot, still trying in vain to get the plane under control, yelled at her to jump. At first she thought he was crazy. Then she realized what he meant. She found the parachute and waited for him to follow. When he yelled at her to go ahead she hesitated for a moment. But he was her superior and she had to follow his orders. She opened the door, took a deep breath and hoped her Algebra homework made it.

As Sydney descended downward she grew more and more frightened at what she was descending towards. As a child, up to the age of six that is, she had loved water. Then her mom had died and she hadn't gone near it voluntarily since. When Francie had celebrated her seventh birthday at a water park Syd had just stared at the water for awhile until faking a stomach ache and going home. When her dad had picked her up she had given him the same excuse, but she felt that he knew her true reasons. It was kind of obvious considering she had dropped out of swimming lessons the same year of the accident and had avoided all possible contact with water, short of showering and drinking it. When she had gone into the CIA she had been required to take tests and she had gotten them over with as quickly as possible. Now that she was out in the water though, all training vanished and she started to do the only thing she could think of....scream. Her screaming was silenced by an explosion above her. The plane had detonated. Sydney wanted to turn away from the awful sight, but was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, by some weird and horrible fascination. She had seen buildings blow up, even at her low status she had seen a few people die, but she had never been that close to death before. Capture, maybe but not death. She thought of the two men who must have certainly died and how if she hadn't jumped, that she would have shared their awful fate.

* * *

Speaking of awful things, don't drunk people really look disgusting. I mean they're all smelly and grody and their eyes are blood shot. Well, this was the image that greeted Irina as she stood over the form of her intoxicated husband. This was the first real glimpse she had seen of him in eight years, excluding the fleeting one of him stomping past her to Sloane's office and seeing him at the party, and let me tell ya folks, it wasn't pretty.

She had been careful. She had been exceedingly careful. She had avoided all possible areas where she might run into him, but sooner or later it was bound to happen. Of course him lying passed out on the floor was more favorable than him shoving a gun in her face, but it still wasn't the meeting she had imagined. But it was a whole hell of a lot safer.

She had been walking down the street trying to find a decent pub to drowned her sorrows in. And from the looks of it, apparently so had Jack. The only difference is that he had already found it and from the smell of it, drank it dry.

Irina looked around. The place was deserted, except for the bartender, and in her experiences she didn't trust that kind one bit. She couldn't leave him there, but she couldn't exactly take him home with her. She thought about calling the CIA, but that would provoke questions and inquires and all that awful legal stuff. The CIA didn't take too kindly to their operatives being inebriated. Not to mention they'd probably wonder who called it in and more importantly how that person knew how to call. So she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, the hard place being a smelly, smashed spouse. So she searched for his keys and lugged the body to the car. "This isn't the first time I've done this," Irina mused to herself. "But usually I put the body in the trunk."

* * *

"Why do you always have to be so stubborn?"Irina grumbled.

Even unconscious Jack was being difficult. Irina had managed to get him in the house, but was having trouble hauling him up the stairs. She was a bit out of shape, even though she carried and washed like 200 lbs of dishes a day.

After a lot of pushing and shoving and swearing and wishing that Jack and she had purchased the one story house instead, she finally made it. She dropped Jack down on the bed and sat down herself in order to breathe. After she had enough oxygen, curiosity began to get the better of her and she started to look around. It wasn't like there was any danger. It was highly unlikely that Jack was in any state to stop her and from what she had figured out at school, Sydney was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

After she took the phone of the hook to insure that there would be no rude awakenings for the slumbering drunk, she started rummaged through her old things, surprised that Jack hadn't burned them all. All pictures containing her had been removed from their old homes atop the dressers, tables, and mantel, but were carefully stored in her top drawer. Even most her clothes were still hanging in the closet, which was even more remarkable considering she had shared the closet with Jack. That meant that every time he would open the closet he would see her stuff hanging by his. If it were her it would be a little unnerving, but it wasn't and for all she knew he could have just kept it there for Sydney or been too lazy to clean it out. But that didn't seem to likely.

She passed the bathroom and went into Syd's room. She smiled as she looked at the walls. They still donned the same cloud wallpaper Syd and she had picked out for Syd's fifth birthday. The same furniture was there, with an exception of a desk, a chair, and a lamp. On her bed a familiar face greeted Irina. It was the bear she had given Sydney the day before the "accident". She picked up the fluffy creature and hugged it while she explored further. Irina's old jewelry box was on the dresser, filled with lots of anniversary and birthday presents from her family. She was about to leave the room when she noticed a small book poking out from under the mattress. Although she respected her daughter's privacy, a look in her daughter's diary would be as close a chance to know her as anything. She couldn't resist the urge and opened it up. She found herself lost in the events of her daughter's life that she had missed and that apparently, so had Jack.

Irina didn't realize how long she had been there until she heard a groan. It was around four in the morning and no doubt the effect of the alcohol was wearing off. She quickly finished reading the last page and scrambled to put everything back as it had been. She tiptoed in to the bedroom where the sleeping, but not for long, individual was. She pulled the covers over him and looked once more into his haggard face before making her exit. But not before searching through his drawer to find the something she had been reminded of, during her reading. She finally found what she had been looking for. She found Jack's heart, or rather a small, quarter-sized, silver, half shaped heart. She tugged at the necklace she always wore. The other half of the piece was hanging on the chain. Jack had given it to her on their wedding. She had put hers on a chain, while Jack had preferred to keep it with his pocket change, so every time he went to pay for something he'd be reminded of how much he loved her. Of course, anyone who knew him now would think she must have married some other Jack Bristow because there was no way that the gruff, strict, man who yells a lot, could have ever been that sickeningly lovey dovey. Irina wondered why he had left the heart in his drawer and not melted it down into a bullet. She was still puzzling over this when she heard another moan from the bed. She quickly put the heart away and closed the door before making a mad dash to the front door. She took one final look and ran out the door.

She got about half way before she realized she still had his keys. Realizing that wouldn't look good, she raced back in the house and stopped. She didn't know where he put his keys. She finally decided to stick them by his bed. She crept upstairs and was about to lay the keys by his bedside when he opened his eyes.....

* * *

**_This is Alias, so I figured I had to have atleast one cliff hanger. Inebriated has to be one of my favorite words. There are just so many fun words for being drunk, smashed is another good one. I want to thank all my loyal reviewers for reviewing again. It's like Christmas everyday!!_**

**_To the Surfy, black ops, and BB: Always like to hear things like that._**

**_To Drama Queens Rule: Your wish is my command, you will be getting to see Sark quite soon._**

**_To Scary-Girly: I'm starting to think that all anybody cares about anymore is Vaughn!! Course, I can't blame them...._**

**_To morrisseylover: Spyfamily moments coming up in a few chapters, although maybe not the exact members you're thinking about._**

**_To thehoodedsweatshirt and Rach5: Yep, I was referring to Titanic. _**


	8. Drunk Got Ran Over By A Missy

**Note: I want to see if anybody notices that I didn't write a disclaimer. Anyway, I know the title is really weird, but it's the best I could come up with. As in the last chapter, I made a reference to a movie and so in this chapter I refer to wake up juice. Can anybody tell me which science fiction trilogy with a crazy scientist with wacked out white hair, it was in?**

**_Ch. 8 "Drunk Got Ran Over By A Missy"_**

.....and turned over. He hadn't seen her. Irina couldn't believe it. She lowered herself to the ground, incase he would roll over again. She waited for him to fall asleep. After about 10 minutes she heard the thunderous snoring that drunkenness brings on, accompanied by natural talent. She carefully tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs. She had just about made it, was almost home free or in this case was it free from home? Anyway she was almost safe when...there was a knock at the door.

"Oh sh...eet of cookies," Irina mumbled under her breath. It was an old habit. Whenever she had been about to say the s-word in front of Sydney she had saved herself by saying that. Irina scrambled behind the counter and thought that the day, yes technically 4 a.m. is morning although no human is up at that hour to know if it is or not, could get any worse. Of course, it did. Who should walk through the door, but the one and only Sloane. Irina clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Even a well trained individual as herself got scared when the likes of Arvin and the Chipmunks Sloane was around. She watched as he called out Jack's name and heard Jack groan in reply. As he went upstairs Irina debated whether to make a run for it while they were talking. It would be dangerous for her to leave with them right upstairs, but she figured it would be even more dangerous to stay. Who knew when her next chance might come? Even worse, she could really be in trouble if Sloane came down to make Jack some wake up juice. She decided to go and closed the door so quietly that the two men never even knew it had been opened. Well, not exactly.

"Did I just feel a draft?" Sloane asked, as he shivered.

"No thanks. Already had one. Would like a Bud Light though," Jack answered.

"No Jack. I didn't offer you a drink. I said it was cold," Sloane said, somewhat irritated.

"You're not that old, Arvin. I mean you're getting on and all, but...."

"Jack we have a problem at work. I think you should come with me."

Jack begrudgingly followed Sloane to the door. Sloane seemed to think better of it though and turned back to Jack.

"Maybe you should shower first."

* * *

Back in the Atlantic Ocean, Sydney was singing the theme song from Titanic. "And my heart will go on and on..." Finally she got bored and started thinking of other sea related songs, which turned out to be a bad thing when the Jaws theme popped in her head. Although, it is very rare to find a shark in the cold Atlantic Ocean, Syd was tired, hungry, thirsty, and very bummed out, so it was very easy for her to become paranoid. "Da da..da..da..dadadadadada" "Ah!!"

It was only a small fish, but like I said she was paranoid. Fortunately for her the scream actually did some good because a young boy in a boat a few miles away heard the scream on his little device hearing thingy. Naturally curious, he went towards the noise maker.

When Sydney saw the boat she couldn't believe it. "How lucky am I?" she thought to herself. Of course, the opinion would change momentarily.

The boat and the blond haired boy reached Sydney within a few minutes. Seeing her in the water he lowered down a life saver and when she got in, pulled it up. Although she was very wet and not in her best, the teenager was quite taken with her.

"Hello," he said in an unmistakably British accent.

"Hi," Sydney replied back in an obvious American accent. Sark helped her find a blanket while she told him her story. Of course, it wasn't exactly the truth and of course, Sark wasn't a complete idiot. He found it hard to believe that she had ski dived out into the Atlantic Ocean at that early an hour in the morning and that someone had just forgotten to pick her up. "That's too stupid even for Americans," he thought to himself.

"What did you say your name was?" he asked, suspiciously.

"My name is Irene Bostow," Sydney replied.

Sark, having no reason not to believe that she wasn't just some stupid valley girl from California who was even stupider than the stereo type, led her to an empty room and started the boat back toward home. If Syd had thought about it she might have wondered what a 15 year old boy was doing driving a boat worth a couple hundred thousand dollars, but she was still recovering from theme song trauma.

* * *

Sloane had told Jack to head to SD-6 as soon as possible and also to take a taxi. After taking a shower and drinking some really awful remedy, he finally began to wake up. Besides wondering what the problem was, he was also beginning to wonder about a few other things. Like how in the world did he get home? The last thing he remembered was asking Mickey for another scotch and wondering why the bar was spinning around and around. Well, actually that wasn't the last thing he remembered. He remembered hearing voices or to be more correct, a voice. A female voice, very familiar, yet different. Jack didn't remember much of what it said, but he did recall something that sounded like Russian swear words. He shrugged it off. Probably just delusions, he thought. After he was ready, he hoped in the car and sped towards the office. By the time he reached SD-6 he was very proud of himself. He had only hit one mailbox.

He rushed into the building and went to the elevator that went down to the SD-6 level. While he was waiting a thought suddenly came to him. Why didn't Sloane just call him? Well, he would find out soon enough. The door opened and he made his way towards Sloane's office. When he arrived there he was greeted with a sober face, sober in both respects.

"Jack, sit down."

Jack did as wished and became even more worried. "Could something be wrong with Sydney?" he wondered.

"There's no easy way to say this, but Sydney's missing. Her plane never made it to its destination. When we tried to contact it, no contact could be made. At first we thought maybe they had needed to land somewhere or for safety reasons couldn't contact us. I came and got you all the same, in case..." he paused for a moment. "In case we had reason to fear something was wrong." Sloane paced around his desk as he delivered his little speech and suddenly came to a halt. "We have already sent out a team to look for her. We will find her if she's still...." Sloane halted and looked out the window to advert Jack's eyes. Even though he wasn't completely clear-headed yet, Jack could tell that Sloane was having as much trouble with this news as he was. "So we have no idea where she could be?" Jack asked worriedly.

"Well, the last transmission we had from the plane was when they were about 45 minutes away from England. We can only assume that if there was a malfunction....."

"Sydney could be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Jack finished for him.

Sloane solemnly nodded his head.

* * *

"Waz' you got there sonny?"

Sark turned toward the familiar loud and boisterous voice.

"A souvenir from the sea, Kim," he answered back.

"You finally catch a mermaid have ya?"

Sydney, still wrapped in the blanket, stared at the man her rescuer was conversing with. He looked like some old sailor bum off a Hornblower movie.

"Allow me to introduce you to one of the finest drunken idiots in the world, Kim..."

"The last name doesn't matter, missy. Little scalawag can't even pronounce it correctly anyway." Kim interrupted.

"I'm Irene Bostow," Sydney said, extending her hand.

The gesture was met with the strongest handshake Sydney had ever felt. She just hoped she never had to fight him or anyone in his family.

"Why don't we save the pleasantries for inside," Sark suggested. "I don't know about you," he said turning towards Sydney. "But I feel like some hot cocoa."

Sydney smiled and the three walked into a nearby café. They sat down and a waitress around Sydney's age came over to get their order. "Hello, my name is Lauren and I'll be your waitress tonight. Is there anything I can get you?"

"Ya," Kim replied. "A round of hot chocolate and uh," he said leaning towards the waitress and lowering his voice, "Make mine something stronger," he said with a wink.

The waitress smiled and left to get their drinks. That was when Sydney realized she should contact the CIA, to let them know she was okay. She excused herself and was glad that the pay phone was one, around the corner and out of sight, and two, right by the bathroom, which made her excuse of leaving much more believable.

Using a trick she'd learned she dialed the number for SD-6, but instead got a place called Joey's Pizza. Ticked off that she'd forgotten the real phone number, she dialed the only other one she could. She called the CIA headquarters. Sloane had told her that the CIA wouldn't acknowledge the SD-6 branch, but they couldn't very well leave her stranded. A female voice answered and asked for her number. Sydney recited it perfectly, she hadn't forgotten that thankfully, and was confused when the voice yelled back at her. "This is a government line. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now I want you and your little friends to stop these pranks calls or else!" The voice slammed the phone down and Sydney, mouth open in surprise collected herself and headed back to the table. She was beginning to wonder if all adults were cranky.

* * *

"We've located her, sir."

Jack started up from his desk. He had fallen asleep. "Where is she?"

"She's in a café in a little village by the coast," the messenger answered. He turned to leave the room, but then he remembered something and turned back around. "Mr. Sloane would also like to see you sir."

Jack got up from his desk and went to Sloane's office. He was expecting to see him in high spirits, but was surprised to find the same sad look still on his boss's face. Jack was almost afraid to ask.

"Do you want the bad new or the good new first?" he asked Jack.

"Does this have anything to do with Sydney being found?" Jack asked back.

"Well, there goes the good news," Sloane said, with out humor.

Jack waited for him to continue and when he didn't, Jack began to worry, again. He was getting very good at it. "Is she okay?"

Sloane emitted a nervous chuckle. "Depends what you mean by okay. If you're asking if she's hurt, yes she's okay. If you're asking if she's in the company of enemy agents, then no she is not."

Sloane slid a file across the desk to Jack. He picked it up. Inside was a picture and a profile of a teenage boy. It was quite a profile and it was quite a problem. Sloane explained that they couldn't move in with out endangering Sydney's life. The people she was with had no reason to believe she was an agent, but it might look kind of suspicious if a helicopter and a group of armed men showed up. Although Jack agreed that a extraction at the moment would be premature, he didn't know what alternative there was. When he asked Sloane, he only got two words, words he did not like at all. The words were, "We wait."

* * *

As you know Jack is terrible at waiting. So was the rest of the Bristow clan and this particular Bristow had waited a long time. A very long time and all she wanted, out of anything in the whole wide world, was for a very drunken Kim to stop calling her missy.

"Guess what missy, I use to be a very rich man. Yep missy, I use to be somebody. I owned this town missy, I was the man....missy."

Sark, being very observant, noticed that this bothered her and said something to Kim when Sydney went to the jukebox. Kim, not taking offense, agreed to stop calling her missy. When Sydney got back he was extremely careful not to offend her by referring to her as missy.

"So girly, find any good songs?"

Sydney was about to tell him that she had indeed found a good Christmas song called "Drunk Got Ran Over By A Missy" when she heard something that sounded like a helicopter and she wasn't the only one who heard it.

Sark looked out the window. Once he saw it, his mood shifted fast. "I think we've over stayed our welcome. Let's go."

Sydney didn't have time to argue before Sark almost pushed her out the back door. Sark ran through the alley dragging Sydney with him and Kim lagging behind, swaying from side to side. Sydney could tell they were headed towards the boat. She didn't realize why Sark was running. What reason did he have? That's when Sydney started to put the puzzle together. Why was a teenage boy trusted with such a large and expensive ship? Why had he been out there in the first place? Why was he running from people he shouldn't even know about? He had no cause, unless he did know about them. Unless he was an agent himself. Unless he was an enemy.

Sydney yanked her hand away. Sark looked at her in amazement until it finally dawned on him. As quickly as Syd had put the clues about him together, he did the same for her. His early suspicions must be correct. Why else would a helicopter be in the middle of nowhere? Not wanting to waste time on the rest of the whys, he tried to grab Sydney. By this time she knew that he knew and he knew that she knew that he knew. So they started throwing punches and kicking at each other when suddenly they were stopped by a shot.

They turned around. Kim, who had been dubious to all that was going on around him, had stopped, out in the middle of open space, to take a swig of rum. The two saw him fall to the ground. They just stared for a moment before Sark took off toward the boat. Sydney didn't have the heart to catch him. She just stood there. She was still standing there when the SD-6 agents rushed to her side. They helped her on to the helicopter. The agents decided to give up on Sark, he was already gone and their main mission was to bring Sydney back.

Back at the lair, Jack was pacing back and forth in his office, wondering if it was possible to die of worry. Although earlier they had decided against going in, they had changed their minds when the copilot of Sydney's plane had showed up. He had been found in a British hospital and had just recently contacted them. It was too much of a coincidence that the airplane had been fired on and that an enemy agent just happened to be floating about the coast. They had waited because they thought Sark might figure out who Sydney was if they suddenly appeared, but if he was affiliated with the attack, he had probably already figured out who she was.

"Jack?"

Jack turned to see Sloane standing in the doorway, wearing a smile that was almost too big for his small head. Jack, in turn, allowed himself a small smile that was too little for his big head. Small head turned to leave when big head suddenly stopped him.

"Small head, when Syd was missing, why didn't you call me? It would have been easier than coming to get me."

"I tried, Big head, but your phone was disconnected,"with that small head left.

Big head pondered over this for a moment. Another question for his never ending list.


	9. Johnny's Daddy

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the character in this story, except Mathew. Mathew is out of my own demented head. I mean I'd have to be insane to think someone like him up.**

**Note: If anybody hasn't figured this out yet, the title is kinda a spinoff of "Boy Meets World". So I thought it only fitting that we'd steal their theme song too. **

_When this Spy Meets World  
Spy Meets World  
Wandering down this road, that we call life  
Is what we're doin'  
It's good to know I have friends that will always  
Stand by me  
When this Spy Meets World.  
_

**_Ch. 9 "Johnny's Dad"_**

Once they reached the United States of America, Sydney was sent straight to meet Sloane. Of course, she met him at the school, not the official headquarters. She was still too young and besides it might be awkward considering her father was there. Nothing could have shocked Sydney at that point though. Well, maybe that could have, but very little else could. Even though he had called her missy and girly and even though he had been a drunk, she had still liked Kim. Seeing what she had seen had really shaken her. Not to mention jumping out of a plane, seeing the plane she had just jumped out of blown up, having sea theme songs stuck in her head, she was lucky she was still sane. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Sloane. She just wanted to go home, curl up in bed with Theodore, her teddy bear and bawl her eyes out.

"Hello Sydney," Sloane said as he walked into the room.

"Hi," she replied back softly.

"We were really worried about you," he said as he sat down beside her.

"Who's we?" Sydney asked curiously.

"Why the agency," Sloane said. He had almost slipped up, but had recovered beautifully. I mean he still wasn't handsome, but he covered his mistake nicely. Wish the same could be said about his nose.

The rest of the meeting wasn't that eventful. Sydney told Sloane about Sark, except when she was filling him in she realized she had never gotten his name. Sloane got her up to speed and everyone got to know stuff and Syd found out the copilot didn't die and if it hadn't been for Kim, Sydney might have been able to forget it all. Sloane, knowing that Jack was probably having an ulcer at the moment and that he'd have to pay for the doctor bill, sent Sydney home. He explained that he had personally called her father and explained everything. Sydney nodded and almost nodded off to sleep on the short car ride back home. She got out, thanked her "Coach" and ran inside. She couldn't wait to go to sleep.

Jack leapt off the coach the moment he saw the door knob turn. He had promised himself he wouldn't make that big a deal out of it, that he would pretend that nothing had been wrong, that he hadn't been worried because his daughter had been dumped in the middle of the ocean and picked up by some English/Russian/Enemy agent. But of course with all that worry, even the famous, "I Keep My Emotions Bottled Up Inside" Bristow, couldn't help himself. Before Sydney had even come all the way in, Jack had grabbed her into a tight embrace and believe it or not his face actually showed emotion.

Although Sydney was as surprised as us, she returned the hug whole heartedly. For a moment she wondered if he knew. "Nah," she thought to herself.

Jack, remembering she was only supposed to have had bus trouble, quickly regained his composure, mostly. "I was worried," he said.

"About me?" Sydney asked.

"If this had been a TV show," Jack thought, "that would have been the part where the audience would have gone, "Aw"." Was he really that bad a father that his daughter didn't think he ever worried about her?

"Do you want to go out for ice cream?" Jack asked, hoping that would somehow redeem him in his child's eyes.

Although Sydney was about to fall over from fatigue, she quickly agreed. Any chance to spend time with her father was more important than sleep and hello the man said ice cream. As he took another look at her Jack realized that she needed sleep more than frozen family time. When he suggested she go up and rest instead, Sydney protested. She didn't say so, but she felt that if they didn't go now she would once again loose a chance to be with her dad.

"You need your rest, sweetie. We can go later, but right now I want you to march up there and get into bed. That's an order," he said in a mock captain voice.

Sydney grinned and walked up the stairs. She knew she was lucky to get this much out of him, but she could resist. "Will you tuck me in?"

Jack was about to say no, thinking she was much too old for that when he realized she was just trying to reach out to him. "Sure," he said as he followed her up the stairs. He knew too well what it was like to have an absentee father and he suddenly realized how much he had become like his own.

* * *

Although the Bristow family had been blessed with many talents, stubbornness was something they also inherited. And Mathew Bristow had plenty of that. Besides being stubborn, he was bossy, opinionated, pretty much everything Jack was. He had a good poker face and always won at it too. For years he had stayed out of his son's affairs because he thought that was for the best and because that's what he had always done, but with age comes wisdom or rather more experiences and lessons to find wisdom. And Mathew realized he had made some mistakes, which for a Bristow is a lot to admit. So he decided that he was going to rectify the situation, even if it killed both of them. Besides what's the fun of having children if you can't annoy them later in life?

The doctors had told him that with his eye sight he shouldn't be driving, but then they hadn't realized that they were talking to Mathew Bristow, successful business man, world traveler, learned man who had graduated from Yale. If they had known that, they wouldn't have dared to cross him, but what do doctor's know anyway? At least those were the opinions of Mathew. If his wife Nancy, who had passed away nineteen years ago, was still alive she would have made him take a taxi. But then if she were still alive, he wouldn't be going to make things right with his son, because things would have been wrong in the first place.

"'Ey, we're 'ere," the cab driver said in his particularly annoying accent.

"Thank you so much," Mathew said, rather sarcastically, as he paid the driver. "Keep the change."

"O wow. A 'ole dollar! T'ank you sooo muc'" the driver replied, with sincere sarcasm, back.

"Don't spend it all at once," Mathew yelled as the cab drive drove off, swearing loud enough to wake up half the neighborhood.

Mathew walked up to the door, wondering if this was such a good idea or not. He was about to turn back when he realized that his wife would have wanted him to make things right. Besides he wanted to meet this wife of Johnny's. How Johnny had ever gotten anyone to marry him was beyond his comprehension, but at least marriage might have sobered the crazy boy.

He hadn't waited but a few second after knocking, when a girl opened the door. From the looks of it, it seemed as if he had the wrong house. One, he was pretty sure he'd know if Johnny had had a child and two, he was pretty sure his son's child wouldn't be African American, considering his son wasn't and he knew for a fact that his daughter in law wasn't. Otherwise his sister in law, who went to the wedding, would have informed him since she believed it her life task to inform others on things that were not her business. And if this was indeed his son's house he knew Johnny would have figured out something was a little strange about his daughter. Mathew knew his son was daft, but not that daft.

"Hello. I'm looking for the Bristow residence. Could your direct me to..."

"This is the Bristow residence. Hold on a sec."

Well, maybe he was that daft. "Sydney!" the girl yelled.

"Sydney must be the wife's name," Mathew thought. His thought was falsified when Syd came running down the stairs. "Apparently not," Mathew whispered under his breath.

"Thank you Francie. Hello," said the new girl, who apparently was named Sydney.

"Hello," Mathew said back, wondering if there was more than one Bristow in L.A.

"Please come in. Can I help you?"

"Yes. Um, I'm looking for a Jonathan Bristow," he said as he closed the door behind him. "I don't suppose you know..."

"He's my father. Are you with Jennings's Aero Space?" she asked.

So that's what Johnny was wasting his life doing, instead of going into the family business. "Yeah. Sure. That works." When he received a strange look from someone who supposedly was his grandchild, although she didn't look a thing like Jack, he changed the subject. "Is he here?"

"No, he ran out to get a pizza," she replied.

Just like his Johnny, eating junk food. He never did eat his brussel sprouts.

While he was thinking about this, he noticed the kid was staring at him.

"Have I seen you before?" she asked, as she studied his face.

"No," he said quickly. "Is your mother home?"

"My mother passed away nine years ago," Syd answered sadly.

Mathew felt really bad and stupid, for once, in that order. Usually his pride came before his feelings. He also felt sort of jipped. He wanted to see what lunatic married his son.

"I'll just go then," he said turning for the door. He was stopped in his tracks when the door swung open and he was face to face with Johnny.

Jack's mouth swung open. "Dad?"

Jack was stunned. Jack was dumbstruck. Jack was stupefied. Of course, to his father these reactions didn't seem out of the ordinary for Johnny. Of all the people Jack would have thought would come back into his life, he would have expected Laura to come back before his father, and she was dead.

"Hello Johnny," Mathew said calmly.

"What are you doing here?" Jack squeaked, in a very uncomplimentary voice.

By this time, Syd and Francie had totally forgotten that they were suppose to be arguing over whether Titanic or The First Women's Club was a better movie and were totally enthralled in watching what seemed to be an even better film, unfolding before their very eyes.

"Sydney, Francie," Jack said, remembering their audience. "Go pick out a movie.

"Upstairs," he added quickly.

The two grumbled as they headed up the stairs. They always had to leave when things got interesting.

"Can't a father visit his son?" Mathew said in response to Jack's earlier question.

"Not when the father hasn't seen the son in over 19 years, including missing the birth of his grandchild."

Mathew looked a little sheepish, but continued. "Missed your wedding too."

"Yes," Jack said in a tone that indicated he had not wanted to bring the subject up.

As dense as Mathew was, even he noticed it. "I'm sorry about your wife," he said genuinely.

"Me too," Jack said in a way that Mathew didn't quite understand.

The two just stood there in awkward silence until Syd, who had been eavesdropping upstairs with Francie, came down the stairs. "Would you like to stay for supper?" she asked.

As Mathew accepted, her father gave her a look that said, "we'll be talking later." Syd hoped this little intervention wouldn't cause him to be mean again.

"Are you sure you want to stay? After all it is a long drive back home," Jack said, trying to undo Sydney's damage.

"I'll probably need to get a hotel room," Mathew said wincing, thinking of the expense.

"You could stay here," Syd suggested. "Or not," she said, after she received a "if looks could kill" from her father.

Mathew was hesitant, but only for a minute when he realized the money he'd save.

"Okey dokey!" he said with as much enthusiasm as he could under the present situation.

Jack groaned. Tonight was going to be a long night. What a week to give up drinking.

* * *

**_I have to say that Mathew is one of my favorite characters, because he helps us understand why Johnny a.k.a. Jack, is the way he is. He's also just fun._**

**_To Rach5: The trouble is just starting._**

**_To Scary-Girly: Someone's a tad obsessive on the Vaughn subject. "Coughscary-girlycough" Just kidding._**

**_To eyghon: I haven't gotten that far yet, but Irina does get to talk to some other people on the phone later. Now if she can just remember to turn the voice distorter on..._**

**_Tp Krystle3: And I can't wait for some more reviews!!_**

**_To black ops: Yeah, I always have an interesting time coming up with the titles. From like day one I knew I had to have Irina drag Jack home._**

**_To thehoodedsweatshirt: Yep, Jack's pulling double duty in the spy world. You'll get to meet my CIA boys later. And NO! Vaughn is not among them for you vaughnaholics that might be reading. And yes "wake up juice" is from Back to the Future. I don't know how you ever guessed. _**

**_I was dissapointed nobody found the line from Galaxy Quest. It was "red thingy moving toward the green thingy and she was pretty sure they were the green thingy". It's a really good movie and you should all see it. Alan Rickman and Tony Shaloub steal the movie. Of course, Alan Rickman always does that....Anyhoo, the story is about these actors whouse to star on a kinda Star-Trekish show and then they get involved with aliens who think the show is real and they have to battle really ugly aliens...............you're probably wondering why I'm babbling about this, but I might write a story like that about Alias, where Jennifer Garner and Co. get thrown into the spy world._**


	10. A Clue

Found this and thought it was better than my usual disclaimer...... Anti-lawyer spell: Only borrowing, not making any money with it, promise to return ( although condition should have improved, no guarantee is given).

**_Ch. 10 "A Clue"_**

While Jack was looking for some clean bed sheets for their guest, wishing he had asked the nanny where she kept them before he let her go, he wondered what his father was doing there. His father hadn't talked to him in almost two decades and all of the sudden he just appears. He wasn't dying was he? No. Nothing could kill his father. Except bees, he was allergic to bees. If his father stayed true to his father's nature, Jack might just want to remember the bee thing. It was so hard to predict his father, yet it was also so simple. The only other thing Jack could think of was that his dad wanted to yell at him some more. But why wait this long to do it? Maybe he wanted to recruit Sydney into the family business? Well, he better get in line. Mathew had tried to get Jack to join the family business, but he had refused. That might have been what started the third world war. That and a whole list of other things they disagreed on. Jack had always liked to think that he was the total opposite of his father and he still firmly believed that, or at least wanted to. Recently he had realized that he had become almost as bitter and resentful and all the other scrooge like characteristics his father cherished. But at least he admitted his faults. Not like "Mr. I'm right and if you don't agree with me, don't ever come near me or talk to me again". Jack could never see why his carrying on the family work meant so much to the old man. It wasn't even work. It was a hobby. His dad fixed and sold clocks. That's what he did. Day after day after day, there was no end to it. Just the same old thing day in and day out. If he had done that he would have gone crazy. As a boy he had craved adventure and the CIA had provided plenty and more of that. Sometimes though, especially after he found out the truth about Laura, he had wished he had listened to his father.

* * *

Sydney was dying of curiosity. If she didn't find out what was going on between her father and her new grandfather, well actually he was rather old, she would just die. Curiosity had gotten her into trouble quite a few times before, especially on missions. She had seen this guy that looked like Brad Pitt and so she had sort of wandered down the wrong hall way accidentally. Then a group of security guards had seen her and she had had to run for her life. She never did find out if it was really the superstar she saw or not, but she did find out that he had been in Switzerland before, so it very well could have been. Anyway, it was all Sydney could do not to race down the stairs and pounce on the old man until he gave her information. But for some reason, somebody up there didn't like her and she had a report on the history of the discovery of America. She so hated Leif Erickson and Christopher Columbus right now.

Downstairs the unwanted/very wanted guest was making himself quite at home. True to Bristow curiosity and the famous "sticking your honker where it don't belong", as great aunt Abigail Bristow use to say, to put it plainly he was rummaging through drawers. Jack had left the house to take Francie home and Sydney was upstairs working on homework. Mathew saw this as an opportune time to learn more about his son. What better way than by learning dirty secrets that are kept in his son's very untidy drawers? After finding nothing interesting at all, except some dust and something that smelled like week old bologna, he closed the drawers and started across the room. He opened the closet and was surprised to see so many women's clothing. "Either Johnny is sentimental about these things or I just learned something I didn't want to know," Mathew reflected.

Never having much interest in fashion or appreciation for it I might add, the man who owned only one tie that he never wore, went over to the second set of dressers. He pulled the first drawer open with some difficulty and was puzzled when he found ten pounds worth of photos. Each and every photo contained his daughter in law, or so he assumed, since the child looked just like her, and they had all been stuffed into this drawer carelessly. He remembered now that he hadn't seen a single picture of her since he set foot in the house. He found that rather odd. Some people put away pictures of those who died because it made them sad, but he was sure that wasn't the case with his son. Even after two years had passed Johnny had still kept a picture of his dog, Nick, who had died. Of course, that was when Johnny was seven, but things like that usually didn't change, at least in Mathew's experience they didn't. "Hmm," he said. "Another question to add to my budding list," he grumbled. He took out a picture to look at it more closely. It was a photo of Johnny, his wife, and the little girl when she was even littler, maybe six or so. They were in front of a gigantic castle and had the most ridiculous black hats with two circles on them. They looked like rats.

He was about to close the drawer and find somewhere else to snoop when something caught his eye. In the very back of the dresser's frame he noticed a small protrusion. He took out the drawer and examined it further. A part of a board stuck out father than the other. In his work with clocks he had seen this before. He had once fixed a clock for some Russian guy and had seen a similar characteristic. He had, as always, poked around and had found a little drawer within the clock. He started to prod at the protrusion, and was not surprised, well maybe a little, when it popped open, revealing an empty space or so it would have been if not for a small folded piece of paper. He opened it and found something that he never expected to find.

* * *

Jack had just returned from dropping Francie off and there was no way he was ever doing that solo again. Sydney had said she need to do her homework, so he had agreed to take her friend home by himself. It was the longest ten minute car ride of his life. The girl had packed two hours worth of conversation into the ride. That meant she had crammed twelve minutes of conversation into each tiny one minute she was in that car, while driving him crazy. Jack could handle guns. He could handle bombs. Heck, he could even handle five Japanese body guards chasing at him with their big bazooka guns and him having a sprained ankle. But he could not handle another car ride with that yapping teen.

Of course, once he got home and realized he would have to deal with his father, he began to wish the ride had been longer. He went upstairs and walked into his room just as his father walked out. The two collided and the piece of paper went flying up in the air. It fluttered down to the ground and landed on the bewildered Jack. Mathew, knowing this would not look good on his résumé for father of the year, tried to think up some good excuse for something that was very hard, as he found, to come up with excuses for. He didn't need to worry so much. Jack was too interested in the note. It had been quite a while since he had read Russian, but the meaning of this note was unmistakable. After giving his father a very pathetic excuse, he rushed off to CIA headquarters. Once inside, he went straight to his partner, Grant. As he walked in, Grant was picking at his supper, which evidently, because of the disgusting color and smell, came from the CIA canteen.

"Hey Bristow, you wouldn't happen to know what the meat in the cafeteria really is made out of, would you? Considering we're government employees you would think we'd get better...." Grant stopped his blathering when Jack laid the note right in front of his face.

"Oh me oh my," Grant exclaimed as he stared at the note. "It's in Russian."

"Really," Jack said sarcastically, "I didn't know that." Although he knew too well what it said, he wanted a second opinion to prove he wasn't destined for the loony bin. "My Russian is a little rusty. Would you mind translating it for me?"

Grant knew full well that Bristow was much better at foreign languages than he was, but he also knew full well that when Bristow asked for something you did it or suffered a wrath ten times greater than death. Grant read through it, his mouth dropping lower and lower with each word. Jack watched his reaction and assumed it was as much of a confirmation that he was going to get from the speechless agent.

"This is insane," Grant finally stuttered. "Where did you get this?"

Jack knew his answer was going to kill his partner, but he couldn't help himself. "I got it from my father," he said just as naturally as he could under the circumstances.

"Your WHAT?" Grant shouted. After receiving several dirty look from colleagues around him, he lowered his voice. "What you talking 'bout Bristow?"

Before Jack could answer, his stupid cell phone went off. Jack was really beginning to hate technology. "Hello," he answered in a not so pleasant voice.

"Dad, what's going on?" Sydney asked from the other side of the line. Jack inwardly laughed at the very question, if somewhat phrased differently, that had been asked by Grant. "I'm at work sweetie," he replied. "I'll be home soon." He was about to hang up when Sydney said something that surprised and made him want to strangle his father all in one sentence. "Grandpa said he found a note in some weird language."

Why did his father have to be so willing to tell his granddaughter everything when he hadn't told his son anything in the past nineteen years? But this also presented an opportunity. "Did grandpa tell you where he found it?" Jack asked.

Sydney said she didn't know, but she'd ask if he wanted her too. Jack refused her offer and said he'd ask the old idiot himself. When he said it to Sydney however he didn't use the words "old idiot". He told her good night and reassured her everything was okay and then hung up, hoping that matter was taken care of.

Well, it wasn't. Sydney wasn't about to forget something of this weird a nature. She was in the intelligence business after all. What kind of spy would she be if she let matters such as this slip under her nose? Since her father wasn't being very helpful and her grandpa had fallen asleep, she decided to take the matter into her own hands.

When she had heard the crash she had opened the door to see her father and grandfather sprawled on the floor and a piece of paper covering her father's face. Then suddenly she had seen her father jump up, mumble something about work to her grandpa, and then make a mad dash for the door. She had gone out after that to figure out what had happened. Her grandpa hadn't been much help. She had told her father everything she had learned from her grandpa, except she had left off the part about his complaining under his breath about foreign people. Since they had collided right outside her father's bedroom, she guessed that's where the mystery began. She crept in, although she didn't need to, Mathew could have slept through a nuclear explosion. He had once slept through a Richard Simmons's video and that's pretty much the same thing. Once she opened the door she saw one of her mother's drawers lying on the ground. She went over and looked at the contents. Not finding anything she hadn't already seen a million times she looked towards the dresser. She was about to put the drawer back in when she noticed what her grandfather before her had seen. It was already slightly open and she pulled at it a little more. It was empty this time, but Sydney was beginning to put the few pieces of the puzzle together. One: She knew Mathew was curious. She had seen him going through the cupboards and cabinets downstairs. Two: That strangely mysterious piece of paper had to come from somewhere. Three: Her mother's drawer was pulled out and lying on the ground. Four: There was some kind of secret compartment in her mother's dresser.

So from what she knew, she deducted that Mathew, being curious and nosey and having no sense of privacy and all, had looked through her mother stuff and had some how stumbled across this compartment. Since she had never seen it before and from the looks of it, neither had her father, she guessed that the note had been inside the compartment. Feeling very proud of her achievement, Syd put the drawer back in the dresser and was about to call her father about her discovery when something hit her. Why did her mother, a literature professor at UCLA who had only spoken English, to the extent of Sydney's knowledge, have a secret compartment it her dresser containing a note written in another language? Then again, who said her mother knew about it in the first place? Since the dresser was an antique it very well could have been from someone else who owned it a long time ago and spoke another language. That was the only reasonable explanation. But if that was it, why did her father rush out of the house so quick? Why was he so weird when she spoke to him on the phone? Maybe she should just keep this to herself for awhile, wait and see what happened when he got home. If she could wait that long.

Meanwhile back at CIA headquarters:

"This is big."

"This isn't just big, Donaldson, this is major."

"Doesn't that mean the same thing?"

"Guys!" Jack interrupted. "We have more important things to discuss than how big," he said turning to Donaldson, "or major," he continued as he turned to face Grant, "the fact that I found an order from the KGB, giving my..." He was about to say wife, but stopped. "Giving their agent instructions to kill my daughter and I before she was extracted." The words did not come easily. "Never the less, we must find out as much as we can about the manufacturing of this paper and maybe it will give us a clue to finding out more about the KGB." Considering what he had just learned he was surprising calm and business-like and Grant didn't like it. "

"Jack," he said, and Jack knew that it was serious when Grant used his first name. "Maybe you should go home and get some sleep. We'll stay here and do the research," he offered.

"No thanks," Jack replied, somewhat offended that Grant didn't think he could handle it.

"We promise we won't do anything fun without you, Bristow. Like raid Moscow," Grant said, returning to his funny mode.

Jack allowed himself to laugh with the others and for the first time in the last few hours he felt better.

At the same time in another building, someone else wasn't feeling very good. Sloane had decided to work late that night, looking over some reports from his minute spies. He had decided to eat school lunch that day and had been sorry about that decision ever since. Something had tasted funny the moment he had bitten into his salad, and his spaghetti, and his breadstick. If he didn't know better he'd think someone was purposely tampering with his food.

In yet another building in this town, someone else was laughing. Irina had been laughing all day, ever since she had seen Sloane run to the bathroom after delivering his lunch to him. It was the little things in life she enjoyed. Making her boss, a man she despised, throw up on a business client was even funnier. Well, after what he had done to her family he deserved every last, spoonful of a substance that's not suppose to be consumed for a reason.

* * *

**_To black ops: It'll eventually be Syd/Vaughn if I ever get there. And your review is the second longest I've ever received. Now on to the longest..._**

**_To scary-girly: i agree,_ _he is really,really,really,really,really,really,really x a bizillion, hott!_**

**_To drama queens rule: Hopefully Sark will make another appearance later, after Syd gets into the CIA or something._**

**_To Surfy,_****_ may-j, and sweetytweety013: Thanx 4 the reviews!!_**

**_To Rach5: Well, he wouldn't be a very good Bristow if he didn't cause trouble._**

**_To morriseylover: I think the reason they haven't talked about people's past so much on the show is they want to leave it open for one of those jaw dropping revelations they're so famous for. One thing I do know about Jack's character is that, like Vic Garber, he was born in Canada. Which is weird because then wouldn't he work for the Canadian government and not the US? Just curious. _**

**_To Eyghon Fr: I'm glad there was something you liked._**


	11. Pee King Chicken

**Dedicated to Karen, my very own pee king chicken.**

**_Ch. 11 "Pee King Chicken"_**

"Do you love me Jack?"

Although Grant usually left first names for serious issues, he just couldn't resist. Jack narrowed his eyes and prepared for either a really big or major (depends on who you talk to) discovery or one of Grant's famous "not funny when you're the victim" (and Jack often was) tricks. He was lucky this time because what Grant handed him did not have frosting and was handed to his hand, not his face.

He read the sheet of paper and the discovery put him in a good enough mood to actually joke back.

"I'm sorry Grant, but it would never work between us. You're just going to have to accept that and move on."

"I understand," Grant tried to reply in a serious voice, but failed miserably.

Before Grant could think up a slam back, Donaldson and the other men who had been doing research came over. Apparently Grant's discovery on the type of paper had been the only one.

"The ink isn't traceable. There are probably billions that have ink just like it," one reported.

"Ditto on the type of computer they used to print it," another informed.

"No finger prints at all," Donaldson said. "I hate it when the bad guys get us."

Grant smiled. "Not necessarily, gentleman. I hold here the location of the warehouse where the special paper was made," with finishing his sentence he made a bow.

"Cheeky," Donaldson said.

* * *

When Syd awoke the next morning she rushed downstairs to see her father, and was disappointed when he wasn't there. Her grandfather was still sleeping like a log, so she poured some cereal and puzzled over the mystery of the secret message. "It'd make a good title for a book," Sydney thought. She had just about finished her orange juice when the phone rang.

"Bristow residence," Sydney answered.

"Hello honey," her father said.

Sydney could barely hear him over the roar of what sounded like an airplane.

"Daddy" Sydney said, in a tone that meant "you better not be going off on a business trip and leaving me alone with grandpa."

"Sydney, something's come up and I need to go on a trip and you're going to have to stay with grandpa."

"GRRR!" Sydney thought.

"Dad does this have to do with the" Suddenly the line went dead.

"Sydney?" Jack yelled into the phone. His cell had gotten out of range.

Sydney slammed down the phone. How convenient for him to have to leave at a time such as this. Right when things were getting good. Meanwhile, what was she supposed to do with Mathew? She went into the guest room to wake him up.

"You have to get up, Grandpa. You have to drive me to school."

Jack owned two vehicles. He had a car and a van. He had driven the car to work and the van was still in the garage. Needless to say, Sydney was screaming before Mathew even drove the van out of the garage. First, he had forgotten to open the garage door and had almost backed into it. Once out of the garage, he almost took out their mailbox and a couple of their neighbors' mailboxes. He nearly collided with another van, car, and pickup truck that wasn't moving and that was all in the first block.

It had taken all of Sydney's training not to scream every time she thought she was about to die. When they finally made it to the school, she was just happy to be able to feel her feet on firm ground. Now she knew what the astronauts felt like. She walked into the school and headed straight to the bathroom to fix her hair, which she figured probably was stuck straight up and white. Mathew watched as she entered the school. "Didn't even say thank you," he complained.

As Sydney approached her locker Danny came up to her. "Syd," he started and then couldn't think of how to continue.

"I'm so sorry about Friday. Something came up with my dad andâ€it just wasn't the best time," Sydney tried to explain.

"I totally understand," Danny said. He totally didn't, but he also didn't want to be snoopy.

"I'd love to go out again," Sydney said, hoping she hadn't ruined her chances.

"Really?" Danny asked, his spirits picking up.

"Yeah," Sydney said smiling.

Danny smiled back.

* * *

"Highlander, this is Pee King Duck, can you hear me?"

"Affirmative."

"Move north along the building. Red Rover, do you copy?"

"I copy."

"Head west toward the storage facility."

BOOM! BOOM! All four agents were struck down dead.

"I hate this game," Will whined as he took his player off the board.

"Like you were going to win with a name like Roger Rabbit!" Francie exclaimed.

Francie, Syd, and Danny all laughed at Will's expense.

"Seriously Fran, Pee King Duck?" Will teased back.

"I want to be a cook, someday," Francie explained, trying to justify her answer.

"I think you're just chicken."

"Will," Sydney said, "pee king duck isn't a chicken, it's duck. Other wise it would be called pee king chicken.

The other three laughed again while Will blushed. Sydney was glad that they all were able to hang out together. It was a few days after the message had surfaced and yet her father still hadn't surfaced himself. She hadn't heard from him since he had called her about the trip. She was a little worried, but was having too much fun to dwell on it. Her grandfather was awesome. He practically let her do anything she wanted, as long as she ate her vegetables. She had invited Danny over that night to join her and Francie and Will's regular study group that was notorious for studying for fifteen minutes than doing anything and everything else the rest of the evening. They had already played Pictionary, Mars and Venus, and watched enough slap stick comedy to knock them brain dead. It was getting close to 11 and Mathew, who had fallen asleep, finally woke up and had a heart attack when he saw the clock.

"You little rascals didn't wake me up. Now your parents are going to have my hide," he scolded them.

Somehow, he managed to get them all home in one piece and not hit anything, but he did get a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road. "What do those dumb cops know anyway?," he mumbled under his breath.

While Bristow Sr. was getting a lecture from a police officer, Jr. was across the Pacific stuck in a very uncomfortable position.

* * *

**Thanks to all who updated!!!**

**To black ops: I love all reviews. Little ones, big ones, tall ones, short ones, funny ones, mean....ok maybe not all.**

**To surfy: If your English is bad I didn't even notice and I'm glad you love the story!**

**To sweetsouthernbell07: That was Lauren's one and only cameo. I'm not putting up with that faux British accent any longer than I have to. And you were in that twelve step program too? Were you the one with the southern accent and the "Mrs. Vaughn" t-shirt?**


	12. Light Bulb!

**Dedicated to a very special guy. And I do mean "special". Mwahahahahahahah........"chokes on evil laugh"........ok, I'm good.**

**_Ch. 12 "Light Bulb!!!"_**

Jack was in an uncomfortable position alright, a very awkward position. He was in a painful, not to mention embarrassing position. He was in a yoga position.

During the raid of the warehouse, the locals had gotten a tip off and had had the CIA agents running for their lives. With the authorities looking for them and no way to contact the CIA with out being made, their only way out was to sign on to a yoga cruise that was returning to the United States.

"Hey Bristow, how you doin'?" Grant asked Jack.

"You are just loving this, aren't you?" Jack replied.

Grant laughed and continued, "You should've accepted my wife's and my offer to join our yoga class last year."

He continued laughing while Jack ignored him, determined not to break his back during the next position.

Back in L.A. of the U.S. of A, someone else was stuck in a ridiculous position.

"Right foot red."

Sydney moved her foot to the nearest red, which unfortunately was on the other side of the mat. All her skill and agility from being a spy actually paid off, she thought.

"Left hand blue," Francie called out.

Even though Sydney was good, Francie was the master of the game. Of course, the girl could do a pretzel when she was six, so it wasn't a big surprise. Will, however, was having a rough time. As Sydney was moving her hand, Will fell and created a domino effect that ended with Sydney, Danny, and Will sprawled on the floor and Francie laughing like a baboon.

Trying to save his pride, Will suggested they watch a movie. He had been having bad luck with games recently, ever since his little sister had beaten him at Candyland nine years ago. The four of them went down to the den and were about to pop in a movie when the front door opened. Sydney rushed in to the living room and greeted her father. It was all he could do to help from screaming out in agony when she hugged him. He was still very sore from the cruise. Besides the physical ache, his ego was a little bruised and he was disappointed they hadn't been able to find any leads from the warehouse. After he greeted Sydney and her friends, he ran upstairs and flopped down on the bed. He was too tired and battered to even turn off the lights or crawl under the covers. In his fatigue, something in his subconscious finally clicked on. Light bulb!!! He lifted his head from the covers and leapt up from the bed, or as much as one who has endured hours of brutal yoga lessons can, and called up Grant. He had just realized something that could change everything.

Grant had just driven into the driveway of his own home when his cell rang. He thought about ignoring it, but ringing noises drove him crazy. He held out for as long as he could, but after the third ring he had to answer it. When he heard the news he was glad he was so weak. Grant backed out of the driveway and drove to the L.A. headquarters. He called Donaldson on the way. Hey, if he couldn't have the comforts of home, no one else was either.

* * *

"Do you think this makes me look fat?"

Sydney shook her head, amused at Francie's worries. Her friend looked beautiful in the off white dress with the little lace frills. Of course she had looked good in the other 15 dresses she had tried on, too.

"I don't know Syd. Maybe I should try the red one on again," Francie said as she examined herself in the mirror.

Sydney threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. Francie had been driving her crazy with all the talk about the dance and how Charlie was taking her and what shoes she was going to wear and what was Syd gonna wear and they better make sure they didn't wear the same color, but then wouldn't it be cool if their dresses matched? She had been blathering on about this stuff and about a million other dance related topics ever since Principal Sloane had announced the dance. Danny had asked Sydney to go the minute after Sloane's voice had gone silent on the intercom. She had of course accepted and after Charlie asked Francie they had planned every last detail. They had even agreed to shop for their dresses together, a choice Sydney had began to regret since Francie was let loose in the mall. While it was taking Francie 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 15 seconds exactly to find a dress, Sydney had found hers the moment she saw it on the manikin in the store window. It had taken her a few minutes to find her right size, but the end result was stunning. She had found the cutest bracelet while Francie had been debating over whether or not to have her nails done and if they should match her dress. After 1/6 of their Friday was spent, Francie decided on the red dress, with a faux diamond necklace and matching earrings and anklet. Syd didn't buy any more accessories than the bracelet. She knew the perfect necklace to wear with her dress. It was one of her mothers necklaces. It had a white rose with silver outlines on a silver chain, which would match perfectly with her sparkly silver dress. The dress was perfect, in the sense that her father would never let her borrow his credit card again perfect.

"Well, after ignoring you for most of your life, he had if coming," Francie said.

"Besides," she added. "It's not like you're only wearing it this once. You're going to wear it to his funeral too, the way your dad's working himself into an early grave."

Syd had to agree. She had hardly seen hide or hair of her father for the past month. He came home very late at night, or early morning might be more accurate, and left before Sydney normally got up. She had taken lately to waking up an hour or two before usual so she could eat breakfast with him. After he exchanged a word or two with her and gulped down his coffee, he ran out of the house as fast as he could. After he left, Sydney would go back to bed for another hour. Of course, she didn't get much sleep. It was around that time in the morning when the mystery of the paper drove her crazy. Her grandfather, who had taken up what seemed like permanent residence in the Bristow home, had been as tight lipped as her father about the whole thing. The real reason for his lack of spilling was that he had nothing to spill. He was as clueless as Sydney, if not more so. Sydney debated over asking her father what was going on, with the letter and his recent reclamation of his absentee status. At least she had Mathew, but she was getting tired of fearing for her life every time she got into their van.

Her chance to spend time with her father came at the only time she would have preferred not to. Danny's mom, who had been one of the chaperones for the dance, had needed to pull out at the last moment. Danny's great aunt was sick and his mother had gone to stay with her. So this left a vacancy and since Jack hadn't been involved in many school activities, actually to be honest he hadn't helped at one single event, Sydney's teacher thought it was time to make Mr. Bristow wake up and smell the teen spirit.

This came at the worst possible time. Donaldson, clumsy as he was, had stumbled across some unknown information about the division of the KGB that Irina had been in. Jack had finally gotten a free moment from SD-6 and his continual work at Jennings Aero Space and just when he was able to work on the lead, he had to chaperone a dance with annoying, smelly, hormonal teenagers. Oh joy!

When Sydney walked down the stairs in her dress and her mother's jewelry, as Jack noticed, he also noticed that she was growing up. With her hair down, instead of in its usual pony tail, and a little bit of makeup, she looked even more like her mother than usual. He wasn't the only one that noticed.

"Poppet, you're becoming the spitting image of your mother," Mathew said proudly. Poppet was his pet nickname for her and Sydney liked it far better than missy.

"Yes," Jack said hesitantly. "She's growing into quite a beautiful young woman," he finished, not wanting to restate the obvious again.

Sydney blushed. She wasn't use to getting all these compliments from the male species, as Francie liked to call them. Sloane complimented her on her work and Will always told her that she looked great, but that was different. Will had said her hair had looked great the time she had died it green when she was eight, so she couldn't really trust his opinion anymore.

All of the Bristows picked up Danny on the way to the dance and I mean all the Bristows. Mathew was convinced that he would not miss his granddaughter's first dance. It wasn't really her first dance, but Sydney saw no point in ruining his fun, even if he would probably do something embarrassing and ruin hers.

Sydney was the belle of the ball or at least that's what Mathew thought. He couldn't help but be proud of her. She reminded him of his late wife Nancy. She didn't look like her, but the spirit was a lot alike. He also liked to think that she got her intelligence from him, even though if you asked him where Bangkok was, he'd say he never liked those heavy metal bands in the first place.

Sydney was having so much fun that she almost forgot about the looming presence hovering in the background. It was harder however to forget the omnipresent photographer who wanted to capture every moment of her "first dance". But besides the fact that her family was really messed up and had some major issues, everything was going good, until Sloane showed up.

He had been taking a call in his office, but now was free to spread sorrow and grief. While looking around to make sure everything was okay, he happened to see Jack standing awkwardly by the punch bowl. Surprised and a little amused by the sight of Jack Bristow being intimidated, he walked over to greet him. When Jack saw him approaching he mumbled something inaudible under his breath, but I'm sure it was something like, "I have to put up with him everyday at work and now this? Haven't I suffered enough?"

They exchanged hellos and Sloane was about to ask Jack why he was there, when Mathew walked up to the punch bowl and poured himself a glass.

"So Jack, what do I owe the pleasure of your presence...aahhh!!"

Right after Mathew had poured himself a glass of punch, a jazzy song had started and Mathew had gotten so carried away in dancing and swinging his arms that the punch had gone flying out of his cup and on to the expensive, almost Armani suit that belonged to none other than Mr. Arvin Sloane.

"I'm so sorry," Mathew apologized, sincerely embarrassed.

It took all of Jack's abilities not to laugh his head off. It took all of Sloane's abilities not to knock Mathew up the side of the head or worse.

Besides making a beautiful red polka dotted pattern on Sloane, the punch had spilled on the floor too. "Get someone to clean this mess up!" Sloane yelled, somewhat impatiently.

One of the other chaperones ran to get a mop and ran into Irina. One of the staff had been sick and Irina had taken over their shift. This was the third mess tonight and the other two had been before the dance even started. She walked in with the cleaning supplies and almost dropped them. She was use to seeing Sydney almost everyday at school, but she still wasn't use to seeing Jack. One thing she wasn't use to seeing was Arvin Sloane jumping around like a nervous rabbit and...was that Jack's father? Although she was suppose to go clean up the mess she didn't trust herself to be in the midst of everyone from her past.

Jack wasn't the only one who was having trouble not laughing at the current situation. It was all Mathew could do not to laugh at the dignified Sloane being very undignified. Then all of the sudden he began to fell funny. "Jack...," he started.

"What is it?" Jack asked, somewhat distracted by the interesting spectacle of Sloane stomping off towards the bathroom to somehow salvage his suit.

Jack was brought away from this amusing sight when his father didn't answer. "Dad," he said as he turned around.

Mathew had a strange look on his face. As Jack went towards him, Mathew pitched forward. Jack caught him and yelled for someone to call an ambulance as he tried to bring his unconscious father to.

* * *

**To Rach5 and Eyghon: Love to read reviews like yours! And please continue to review. I'm gonna need your help after the next chapter is posted.**


	13. Uh oh!

**_Ch. 13 UH OH!!!_**

Mathew woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by his family and Sydney's friends who had become sort of attached to the crazy old man. Mathew looked around the room and said, "What no flowers? Don't I even get a balloon?"

The group all let out a relieved sigh. If he was back to telling bad jokes, he was alright.

"Glad to see you're back to your old self, Pops," Sydney said.

* * *

"I'm not dying Johnny, I can do it myself!"

These and many other comments had been heard around the house ever since Mathew had gotten home from the hospital.

"Dad, you had a heart attack, you need to take it easy," Jack said, trying to remain patient, although he was about at his wits end.

"Take it easy my buttocks, the moment I stop moving you'll leave me for dead and stick me in a pine wood box and be done with me," Mathew replied, also fed up.

Jack couldn't help but smile at his pig-headed father. He loved him, but sometimes he was just so...well pig-headed. They had had a long chat while Mathew had been in the hospital and resolved a lot of issues. Except for the occasional fight, they were on their way to maybe actually liking each other.

"See you guys later," Sydney yelled as she raced down the stairs and out the door before her father could find out that she wasn't going on a group thing, but a date thing with Danny. Her father still wasn't wild about her dating. If he had it his way she wouldn't be dating until she was 18 and by then her social life would have been obliterated.

She was meeting Danny at Dairy Queen and then they were going to The Artic Circle, the local ice skating rink. When Sydney arrived at the Dairy Queen Danny was nowhere in sight. She waited patiently for five minutes, ten minutes, after fifteen minutes she started getting worried. A couple minutes after that the phone rang and one of the cashiers yelled out, "Is there a Siffey Brisfoe here?" Sydney went up to the counter and took the phone from the cashier, who was wondering, "who in their right mind would name their kid Siffey?"

"Sydney?" Danny's voice asked.

"Yeah. What's going on?"

"There's some....uh, family stuff going on and I have to cancel our date. I'm really sorry."

Sydney thought that Danny sounded terribly upset, maybe even been crying, but all she said was that she'd call him later then. She hung up and went home, bummed out.

On Monday she didn't get a chance to see him until lunch. She had sat down next to Will and Francie when he came up beside her and asked to talk to her alone. Once they were in an empty hallway, he started.

"I wanted to explain why I canceled our date."

"It's ok," Sydney tried to say, but Danny held up his hand.

"You should know, besides I need to tell someone, I'm going crazy."

Sydney waited patiently for Danny to start. After awhile he began, "My parents are getting a divorce," he announced.

"I'm so sorry," Sydney said as she gave him a hug.

"It's really complicated and I don't want to drag you into it, but promise me one thing okay?"

"Anything," Sydney said, automatically.

"Promise me you'll never lie to me," Danny said.

Sydney's face turned pale as Danny continued. "I mean if I have a really bad hair day don't tell me, but like the important things you know?" It was about at this point that he noticed the strange look on her face. "Syd?"

Sydney looked around and led him down another hall so they weren't as close to Sloane's office. She knew he'd throw a hissy fit if he knew what she was about to do.

She then proceeded to tell Danny what her "debate matches" really were about.

* * *

"Mr. Sloane?"

Arvin the ugly monkey Sloane had been having a pretty good day until now. Emily had made his favorite breakfast this morning and his rival in a bid for an antique clock had mysteriously gone bankrupt. He had been feeling content until security dropped a bomb.

"She what?!" Sloane yelled, as he jumped up out of his chair.

Irina was outside his office, waiting for the secretary to get back, when she heard Sloane shriek. Being the person that she was, she felt no guilt in moving closer to the door and eavesdropping on the little weasel. After a few sentences she knew all that she needed to know. She also knew what she needed to do and she wasn't very happy about it. Besides risking her own life and possibly blowing her cover, she might actually make things worse than they already were, but she wasn't going to sit back while an innocent person suffered at the hands of Arvin Sloane. Her fingers were trembling as she dialed the number. It took her three times to get it straight. Third times a charm, right? She took a deep breath and hoped to heaven that this voice distorter worked.

"Hello?"

Irina had expected to hear Jack or Syd's voice and was surprised when the voice answering was neither of the two.

"Is this the Bristow residence?" she asked, uncertainly, forgetting to turn the distorter on.

"Yep."

Well, that was super informative on helping her figure out who was on the other end of the line.

"I'm Mathew," Mathew said after figuring out not everyone on planet earth recognized his voice or knew who he was in the first place. "I'm Joh..."

"Oh, nice to finally talk to you," Irina said, before she could help herself.

"Finally?" Mathew asked suspiciously.

"Uh." For one of the few times in her life, Irina was caught of guard. Deciding to avoid the sticky situation altogether she quickly changed the subject.

"I really need to talk to your son, Mathew."

"You his girlfriend?" Mathew asked laughing.

"If only he knew how funny that really was," Irina thought to herself.

"Could you give me his cell number?" Irina asked, hoping he wouldn't ask any more questions.

Mathew quickly obliged and gave her the number. He chuckled again, after he hung up the phone. It seemed his Johnny didn't have such a boring life after all.

Jack had just gotten off work when his phone rang. This time though, Irina remembered to turn the distorter on.

"Hello, this is Jack Bristow."

"Sydney's told Danny she works for SD-6."

"Who is this?" Jack said, taken back.

"All that you need to know is that Danny is in danger. Sloane has ordered him to be taken care of and there's not much time left."

"I won't do anything until I..."

"Take care of it or Sloane will take care of it for you," Irina said interrupting him. With that she hung up.

Jack just stood there for a moment. A million questions flooded his brain and for some reason one thing stuck out in particular. Laura always use to say this thing when she wanted him to do something, it went something like, "Take care of it or I'll take care of it for you and you won't like it." Of course this was ridiculous. Laura, or Irina since that was her real name, wouldn't have the information or the resources to alert him to this matter, let alone call him. And that's saying she was alive. He didn't know for sure whether she had survived the accident or not. After returning from his yoga cruise from hell, he had realized that if Laura, Irina, whatever had been planning to be extracted around the time of the accident maybe it hadn't been an accident after all. Which meant she could be anywhere and Sydney could still be in danger. But he put all these thoughts out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. Saving Sydney's boyfriend's butt.

* * *

**IMPORTANT: Unless I get past a major writer's block this will be the last chapter. You know how everything has been on a smaller level and connected to school and stuff? Well I always thought I'd just expell Danny instead of killing him off, but I'm realizing that just won't work for a lot of different reason. It won't be a radical enough to make Syd doubt SD-6 or try to leave and all. So with your permission I might kind of ignore the conventional thing and just have her bump into Jack somewhere or something. If anybody has any ideas I would love to read them.**

**Thank you so so so so so so much to everyone who reviewed and please continue because now is when I really need you guys.**


	14. Intermission: Mawage Counsawing

**Note: This is not a chapter in Spy Meets World, but a little something I've had for awhile and felt like subjecting you all to. If it's kinda corny, well you'll see soon enough. The counselor's speech pattern was inspired by the Impressive Cleregyman in The Princess Bride. Okay, enough rambling, read.**

**__**

**_Intermission: Mawage Counsawing_**

Jack and Irina walked into CIA headquarters and wasted no time in finding an innocent soul to torture. They found themselves in luck when they spoted Kendall.

"Hey baldie," Irina says.

Kendall, looking pissed, (as he always does when he has to deal with his favorite ex-KGB assassin who makes fun of his bald head) just nods his head and keeps mumbling his mantra under his breath.

"One more day and I'll be rid of her. One more day and she'll be dead." Now he turned to address Spy Daddy and Mommy.

"I have a very dangerous mission for you. It is highly likely that you won't survive."

All of the sudden cheers are heard all over the room, followed by chords of hallelujah. One look from the two "soon to be corpses" shuts the festivities down though. Turning back towards their boss, who is doing his own little happy jig, Irina and Jack wonder what could be so dangerous.

Jack thinks, (yes he does think!) "They're not making us go to Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon, are they?"

Meanwhile, a bubble appears over Irina's head that reads, "I wonder if I can move up my manicure appointment. Nobody likes a dead corpse with bad nails."

Kendall, realizing that the camera is not on him at the moment, leans over and pops Irina's bubble, startling the two jumpy spies. "Now that I have your attention," Kendall says, "your mission is......," Kendall pauses for dramatic effect and also because the show went to the theme song. Names began to flash across the screen.......... "Miss Beautiful, Rich, Kick Ass, has hot boyfriend so we all love/hate her guts".......... "Mr. The real reason I can't convey emotions is because I've had so many injections of botox that I can barely blink"....... "Mrs. I'm 2 Good 4 this show so I'm gonna leave B 4 the 3rd Season" .....and last, and kinda least....... "Spanky, the bald headed guy that yells a lot".......DUH DUH.

"Marriage counseling."

Both over the hill spies looked at each other confused. During the theme song and the commercials they had forgotten what Kendall had previously said. But at least they knew where to get the best savings on all Christmas items this Saturday from 6 to 9 A.M.

"Your mission is marriage counseling!," Kendall screamed.

"OW!"

The three looked across the room to Jade, the speaker guy.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Back in character........

"Are you crazy?," Jack asked as Irina yelled, "Are you really as stupid as I thought?"

"Um, excuse me?"

The three looked again towards the crew.

"Could you please refrain from yelling? I am hoping not to need hearing aids until Christmas," Jade said.

With a few mutterings about Jade being "an over paid sissy," "stupid know it all," and "dang he is really hot," the stars again went back to their scene.

"We're," the two remembered to keep their voices down, "not going!"

"I'm not going in there," Irina said as the stood in front of the counselor's door. "I mean technically I'm not even suppose to be here."

"Yeah," Jack said, "weren't you suppose to betray the CIA and go work with Sloane and Sark?"

"I was," Irina replied. "But the writers changed it," she said as they walked through the door.

"Stupid writers," Jack said.

"Oh lookie who's agreeing awedy."

Jack and Irina had seen some scary things in their time. I mean HELLO they know Sloane. But never in their entire careers had they ever seen or heard anything so sickingly sweet and disgusting and so totally evil.

"Hewo. I'm your mawage counsawaw. And I'm gonna make you two wovey dovey again in no time."

Irina lowered her voice so yuppy couldn't hear. "Ok, you hold her and I'll knock her out. Then we'll make a run for it."

**Screech**

The doors behind them had shut and a metal door had come down from the ceiling also. There was no way out.

"We're gonna die!!," Irina screamed, not caring if Jade went deaf.

"Oh cum won. It won't be dat bad," the demonic creature said as she circled around them, resembling a shark with a Crestwhite Strip-like toothy grin and a piece of a fin stuck between her two front teeth.

"Jack, I know you're going to enjoy this....if she keeps this up you have my permission to kill me," Irina commanded.

"Yipee!!" Jack exclaimed as he started jumping up and down wildly.

"Don't have too much fun," Irina warned.

"Okey dokey," Crazy woman said, "wet's start with compwiments. You're fiwst Mr. Briwstone."

"It's Bristow," the two answered in unison.

The counselor made the most annoying face and squeaked, "How cwute!"

Ignoring her comment Jack started. "Well, I like to think of myself as intelligent, tall, the original sexy beast....."

"No siwe," the speech impaired being of some sort interrupted. "Compwiment her," she said, pointing to Irina, who was sharpening her nails on the couch.

"What if I have nothing good to say?" Jack asked.

"Then don't say anything at.........oh you omost got me dare," the lady I'm running out of mean names for said.

Jack begrudgingly turned toward Irina.

"You're very good at deceiving people."

"Stop it," Irina said in the way that meant just the opposite.

"No, dat doesn't work. Dry it again," the counselor said, weariness beginning to damper her upbeat perkiness that makes most people vomit.....repeatedly.

"You're very good at knocking people out," Jack continued.

"You're making me blush," Irina exclaimed.

"No! You're doing it wong!" the counsawaw screamed.

Suddenly the doors opened, revealing none other than Spanky. "How's it going?," he asked as he walked into the room. "Ready to get married again?"

"Aaahhhhh!!!!," the once happy go lucky counselor ran screaming from the room and tripped over a unicycle.

"Oops, my bad," Kendall said, "that must be why they say not to leave things right outside of doors. Gotta start remembering that."

Irina and Jack grinned at Kendall.

"So when's our next session?"

* * *

Yeah, I know. Anyway tell me what you think and if anybody's figured out the answer to my previous problem, please pretty please with Spanky (Regina came up with that, not me) on top, REVIEW!!!!!!! And to my three sole reviewers of the last chapter: black ops, Drama Queens rule, and eyghon fur....'sniff'....I love you guys. 


	15. Holy Flashbacks

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alias because if I did, ABC would have fired me for waiting so long to write more. But then again, ABC would also have had a group of writer's toscrew up the storyfor me while I was suffering from Writer's Block.**

**Note: The things that are happening in the present are in normal type and those that happened in the past are in italics. Just in case you didn't get that. I also want to say sorry for taking soooooo bloody long to come up with this. Also, it's a little different from what happened in the series so all I can say it, "Thank goodness for creative license!"**

_**Ch. 15 "Holy Flashbacks"**_

"But he's sooo old!"

Francie sighed. "That's not the point. He's got that certain something and you've got to admit his voice is amazing."

Will just shook his head. He would never understand girls.

Sydney smiled. Ever since Francie had seen the movie "Die-Hard" she had become a die-hard fan of Alan Rickman's and it was killing them. She had subjected her friends to a 25 minute description of the movie before Will had threatened to throw **her **out of a window.

But Sydney didn't really mind. It was nice that some things, like Francie having a new obsession every month, stayed the same. Too bad everything else hadn't.

_Danny hadn't even believed her at first. He had even thanked her for trying to cheer him up. But after he had realized that she wasn't joking, he had just stared at her. She still wasn't sure if he believed her now. She wasn't even sure where he was now._

_He had stayed away from her for the rest of the day. Then the next day, he wasn't even at school. Sydney hadn't really thought anything about it until she had seen the janitors clearing out Danny's locker, with Sloane overseeing the undertaking. He obviously didn't think they could clean out a locker without his supervision._

"_Mr. Sloane, what's going on?" Sydney had asked._

_Sloane turned and looked at her with something akin to pain in his eyes. "Daniel Hect has transferred to another school," he said, conveniently not looking Sydney in the eyes and instead focusing on the top of her head._

_Sydney was speechless. Transferred? In one day? It didn't make sense. Sydney was use to things making sense. Well, except for the secret message, her father, Marshall…..okay, so a lot of things in her life didn't make sense. But this was weird, even for her._

"_But...why?" she asked._

"_This isn't the place for this conversation," Sloane responded. "Let's go to my office."_

_Sydney followed Sloane down the hall to his office. She couldn't understand it. Danny had said that since his parents were divorcing, his father might move back to Pennsylvania, but surely Danny would have stayed here with his mom? Even if he did decide to move, he surely wouldn't have done it in a day? And even though he probably thought she was delusional, wouldn't he have called and told her himself? Sydney shook her head. She was getting a headache._

_When they reached Sloane's office, he sat behind his desk and gestured for her to have a seat as well._

_He clasped his hands together. Sydney gulped without realizing it. If Sloane clasped his hands, the situation was serious. _

"_What's the number one rule about being a spy, Sydney?"_

_Sydney didn't see what this had to do with the situation, but she answered none the less. "Secrecy," she said automatically. It had been practically programmed into their heads._

_Sloane nodded. "In order to do what we do, in order to protect ourselves and others, we have to maintain complete secrecy about this organization and it's operatives. You broke that rule Sydney."_

_Now Sydney was not a naturally violent person. She hadn't even really liked watching Looney Toons when she was little because the blowing up of and heavy objects falling on cartoon characters wasn't really entertaining. But suddenly she found herself wanting to do very violent things with a stapler and Sloane ._

"_So you had Danny suspended?" Sydney shouted at her principal._

_Sloane flinched. He wasn't used to being yelled at. Except when Emily yelled at him for forgetting to take out the garbage. _

_Sloane stared at an imaginary wrinkle in his shirt and smoothed in out before answering. _

"_Yes."_

_Sydney stood up abruptly. "Well, congratulations. Your student body has just decreased by two students in one day." After saying this she walked out of Sloane's office._

_It took a few minutes for Sydney's statement to sink into Sloane's small, but thick head._

"Are you alright Syd?"

The question brought Sydney back to the real world, or present real world as it was.

"I'm sorry Will. What?"

Will and Francie exchanged looks. Syd had been this way for the past two weeks. They knew she really missed Danny, but there was a point (and Syd had crossed it) where it had become obsessive and Francie knew obsessive. She had a new obsession every month. But she usually talked about it until she either got tired of it or more likely, Will told her to shut up. Syd just stared off into space with a sad look on her face.

"We were uh," Will didn't know how to say what he wanted to say, so he chickened out, "wondering if you wanted to go to the mall tomorrow after school."

Sydney shook her head. "I can't, I have dance class."

Will look puzzled. "Since when?"

Sydney shook her head in disbelief. No matter how many times you told Will something, you could always count on him to forget it. So of course, she trusted him with all her most important secrets. "Secrets," Syd thought. That's what started this whole mess.

_The first two days after she had walked out of Sloane's office, she had pretended to be sick. But by the third day, Matthew hadn't bought her story. So after he dropped her off at school, she waited until he left and then she had took off. She spent the day in the park, caught up on some reading, fed some pigeons, and thought of all the awful things she could do to get revenge. Then, she showed back up outside the school entrance in time for Matthew to pick her up. _

_The next day she did the same thing except instead of reading, having gotten tired of reading, she decided to put her spy skillz to use. She had tried to call Danny a thousand times, but his phone was disconnected. She had even called the hospital where Mr. Hect had worked, but all they could or would tell her was that he had moved. She was puzzling over all this when she felt a presence behind her. She turned around and saw Matthew._

"_Poppet…."_

_Sydney didn't wait for Matthew to begin to lecture. She took off running and as much as her grandfather wanted to go after her, he knew that he wasn't the person for this job. He took out a cell phone, a contraption he had finally learned how to use, and dialed. He needed reinforcements. _

"Earth to Syd. Hello in there. Idiots say what?"

Sydney jumped. She really needed to stop having flashbacks.

"What?"

Will and Francie started laughing and it took Sydney a few moments to catch on. She should have felt offended, but it wasn't like it was the first time she had done something dumb.

"_Stupid, stupid, stupid," Sydney said, accompanying each insult with a kick to a poor defenseless tree. Running from her grandfather had not been a smart idea. Neither had skipping school. But she couldn't go back now. After all she was a Bristow. Being stubborn flowed through her blood. _

_It was getting kind of cold now. Sydney hugged herself. As if she wasn't already miserable enough, her stomach began to growl. Then a noise, accompanied by a red flashing light, made her forget her previous problems. "The cops are after me. I'm a fugitive," she thought. She was about to make another dash for it, when she heard a car pull up beside her. Thinking it was all over, she closed her eyes and stood still. No point in running and having them shoot her down._

_"Sydney!"_

_Syd's eyes opened and she turned to look at the driver, who was not a policeman, but her father._

_"Daddy?" _

_"Get in the car," was all Jack said in response._

_Sydney nodded meekly and got in. Now she wished the cops had caught her. Being locked up with hairy, dangerous criminals would be preferable to the wrath of Jonathan Bristow._

_She was so lost in thought that she didn't even realize for awhile that Jack was driving something akin to his father. Except he wasn't hitting anything. Sydney finally came out of her thoughts when they pulled up to an old warehouse._

_"Get out of the car," Jack said._

_Syd undid her seatbelt and followed Jack into the warehouse. As if she wasn't already confused enough, she was even more so when she saw that there was a small group of people waiting for them inside the building._

_"Bristow," a bald man greeted said, shaking hands with her father. "I'm glad you came."_

_"I didn't have much choice in the matter," Jack grumbled._

_The man turned to address Sydney. "I'm agent Kendall. I'm the director of a black opps division of the CIA. Do you know what that is?"_

_Sydney wanted to slap him. Did she look like she was four? Before she could respond though, Jack did it for her. _

_"Kendall, we didn't come down here to get a vocabulary lesson."_

_Kendall, obviously insulted, gestured to one of the people who had been standing behind him. "This is agent Romari. She's come here, directly from Langley."_

"_Langley?" Sydney said. "As in Langley, the head honcho of the whole CIA, Langley?"_

"_Yes. That very Langley," the woman answered._

_Jack rolled his eyes. He felt like he was in some dumb teen movie._

_Agent Romari continued, "I spoke to Langley this morning and he has decided not to acquiesce your request."_

"_Means no," Kendall offered._

"_Great," thought Jack. "Now I'm in a Johnny Depp movie." Then Romari's words sunk into Jack's head. "What do you mean he said no?" Jack bellowed._

_The other agents winced. Bristow had lungs._

"_He's not letting you and Sydney into the Witness Protection," Romani explained. Before Jack could ask, she answered his question. "You're too valuable an asset to loose Jack and now that there's a possibility to have a seconds double agent inside Sloane's operation…"_

_As Jack was yelling some words that he probably shouldn't have used while addressing people who worked for the government, things were finally piecing together for Syd. Trying to prevent her brain from exploding from information overload, she went through each thing one by one. This is what was going through Syd's head…._

_1) She didn't work for the CIA._

_2) Her dad worked for Sloane._

_3) Her dad also worked for the real CIA and was therefore, a double agent._

_4) How did I not figure this out?_

_5) Francie still has my "Reliant K" CD._

_Syd knew she shouldn't be thinking about such trivial stuff as music, but could she help it that one of the agents looked like Matt Thiessen, the lead guitarist in Reliant K?_

_When Syd tuned back in, her father was still arguing._

"_I'm not subjecting my daughter…"_

"_Daddy?" Syd interrupted._

_Jack was quiet for the first time in the last 8 minutes and turned to look at Sydney._

"_If we do this together, we can take down Sloane twice as fast," Sydney explained. "Besides it's not like we can fight Langley."_

_Jack looked like he was about to argue, but a few words from Syd could convince him better than an armed group of CIA agents._

"_Alright," Jack said turning back to Kendall. "What do we have to do?"_


	16. The Vaughn Man Cometh

_**Disclaimer:I own ALIAS. I am also a compulsive liar. You decide what to believe.**_

**_A/N: For all of you that asked for it, here he is. The one, the only, the man formerly known as Michael Vaughn._**

**_Ch. 16 "The Vaughn Man Cometh"_**

"I love this job," Dixon said, as he grabbed a piece of cheese off a tray. "Don't you?"

Sydney ignored his question and kept looking around the room. Sloane had sent them to Naples, Italy to find a bracelet. Syd had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with another piece of jewelry he had acquired recently.

"I wish I could go to the party."

Sydney rolled her eyes. Marshall was in the van outside the museum. He had been talking non-stop all night. Syd was just about to take out her earpiece and flush it down the toilet. She had enough on her mind at the moment. Besides the fact that they were about to steal a highly guarded accessory at a highly attended grand opening, she also had a counter-mission to worry about.

"Bianca, you don't look like you're enjoying yourself," Dixon hinted.

Sydney understood his meaning and started to relax. Most people don't look nervous in a museum. Unless, you're about to steal something. Or you're a klutz.

She took a piece of cheese and almost choked on it.

"Are you okay?" Dixon asked her.

Sydney nodded, but she was a hop skip and a mountain away from okay. There was a definite stink in the air and it was coming from the man in the green suit, who was slipping out a door. She made an excuse to Dixon about needing to go to the bathroom and then followed her old "friend". Syd wondered if he still remembered her.

"_Now, you pretty little girl, who sent you?" _

_Sydney looked up at her captor. For a tall man, he was really fat. He also smelled bad. She should have just let Sloane catch and kill her. That would have been preferable to this stench. But no, she just had to join the real CIA and become a double agent. It's not like she didn't have other things she wanted to do during the weekend. But instead of shooting hoops with Will and Francie, she was across the ocean trying to steal a ring that was older than her Home Ec teacher, Mrs. Kane. And all for Sloane, just so he would let her come back to school and the agency. "Maybe I can just drop the school bit," Syd thought hopefully._

_Smelly grabbed her hand and started twisting it. Sydney didn't even blink. After being in a vehicle with Matthew behind the wheel, torture was nothing._

"_One last time," the ugly, smelly baboon, with really bad teeth, spat. "Who sent you?"_

"_Gota…"_

_The baboon smiled, "Gota what?"_

_Sydney looked him straight in the eye and smiled. He was making this way too easy._

"_Gota hell."_

_As expected, her torturer was rather pissed. He had just raised his hand to strike her, when the door flew open and her father let the evil man have it, with a round of tranquilizers._

_After being untied, Sydney smiled at her father. "I think one or two would have been enough," she said, as she pried the ring off the comatose goon._

_Jack grinned back. "Better safe than sorry, I always say."_

_A few moments later, Sydney looked at her father. _

"_When have you ever said that?" she questioned._

_Her father gave her an exasperated look. "It's an expression."_

_They argued about the matter all 3,800 miles home._

_Not surprisingly, Sloane welcomed her back with open arms. Sydney reluctantly hugged him. _

"_Having to be in the same building with him is hard enough, but if he doesn't let go soon, I'm going to strangle him," Sydney mumbled._

"_What Sydney?" Sloane asked, as he released her._

"_Nothing," Sydney replied, forcing a smile. "Just glad to be back."_

_Sloane nodded. "We've all missed you, Sydney."_

_Sydney kept a smile plastered on her face for the next few minutes, during which Sloane told her that he always knew she would come to her senses and other crap filled statements. As soon as she was able to, Sydney walked quickly out of the room, before bolting for the doors. Besides the minor setback of smacking herself with the door, she was feeling pretty good. Operation Sloaney Baloney was underway._

Sydney followed Smelly into a storage room and watched him go out the back door. She inched toward it and opened the door a sliver. Her shoulders slumped. She had hoped to see him doing something illegal that she could bust him for. Smoking, however disgusting, wasn't illegal.

She made her way back to the party where Dixon was snarfing down more cheese.

Sydney chuckled. If Dixon put as much effort into the mission as he was into the food, they'd be done in no time. "Speaking of time," Sydney thought. It was just about time for the lights to go out on this party. Now Sydney wished she had paid more attention to Marshall when he had been explaining things. Unfortunately, she had been a bit preoccupied that day.

"_Welcome, ladies and gents, to Marshall Flinkman's Gadget World. Today, we have not one, not two, but three great bargains for you. Uno: This deluxe blackout…"_

_Usually, Sydney made an effort to listen to Marshall's talks, considering she would have to use the equipment eventually. But today, she was too distracted by the summersaults her stomach was making. As soon as the meeting was over, she was going to Miss Chase's Dance School to meet with her new handler. She had told everyone that she was taking dancing lessons. Sloane hadn't been too pleased with that. _

_But her dad had talked/threatened him and in the end, he had made no further objections._

"_Sydney?"  
_

"_Uh-huh, what?" Sydney snapped back to attention._

"_The meeting is over," Dixon replied, looking at her worriedly._

_Sydney nodded, gathered her stuff up, and walked towards the door._

"_Sydney, would you stay for a moment?" Sloane requested._

_Syd came to an abrupt halt. Red sirens started whirling in her head._

"_Yes?" she squeaked._

"_Here's the details of your mission," he said, as he handed her the papers._

_As much as it pained her, she thanked him and once again, headed toward the door._

_Twenty minutes later, she was in front of Miss Chase's Dance School. "Too bad I'm not actually taking dance lessons. That walk warmed me up," Sydney thought. Jack had taken Matthew to the dentist, a place he hadn't been for many moons, so neither of them had been able to drive her. Not that Syd minded. This meeting was not something she was looking forward to._

_She took a deep breath and opened the door. As she looked around the room, her thoughts wandered again to her new handler. He was probably some old fogey, with thinning or no hair, who would have absolutely no idea how to deal with a teenage girl._

_She was still standing by the door when a 20 something African-American woman approached her. "I'm Miss Chase. How may I help you?"_

_Sydney took a breath and said. "I'm Sydney Bristow. I'm here for…instruction."_

_Miss Chase nodded. "Follow me."_

_They walked through the lobby and down a hall. Then they turned and walked down another hall, through a door, which was followed by yet another hall. Sydney was already lost. Miss Chase must have guessed her thoughts because she said airily, "You'll get the hang of it after awhile. We haven't lost anyone yet."_

_Syd nodded, but continued to be nervous. Two doors and a hallway later, they came to a staircase that Sydney guessed led down to the basement._

_Miss Chase motioned for Sydney to descend. "I'll meet you here later," she said, with a wink._

_Sydney nodded again, feeling like she was doing a lot of nodding lately._

_Forty-seven steps later, Syd came into a small room, that contained two chairs, a table, and a very cute guy. He rose as she approached. "Mary Rose, I presume?" he asked._

"_It's Miss Clayborn to you," she replied. The codes the intelligence world came up with were always so corny. _

"_Well, it's nice to meet you," he said, as he extended his hand. _

_Sydney shook his hand, but in the back of her mind she remembered that it was proper etiquette for the man to wait for the lady to extend her hand. "But he's cute, so I'll let it pass," Sydney thought._

_The cute guy motioned for her to sit down. _

"_Your papers are very impressive Miss Bristow. I hope I'll be able to keep up with you."_

_Sydney did a double take. "You're my handler?" she exclaimed. She had figured he was her handler's lackey or something. _

_The young handler chuckled. "Yes, I'm afraid you're stuck with me."_

_Thinking that he wouldn't be such a bad person to be stuck to, Sydney realized she didn't even know who **he** was._

"_Um, what did you say your name was?" Sydney asked, even though she knew he didn't say._

_Her handler hit his forehead with his palm. "I'm sorry. I'm pretty nervous," he admitted. "You can call me Michael Vaughn," he said a moment later._

The rest of the meeting had the two going over her counter-mission. She was suppose to remove one of the tiny emeralds and replace it with a tracking device that the CIA had given her.

All in all, the meeting had gone quite smoothly. The exact opposite of what was happening in the present.

Sydney had put the night vision glasses on and could see everything. Except, her partner.

Suddenly, she smelt something cheesy. She turned around and bumped into Dixon, who was still holding a piece of cheese.

* * *

"So the mission was a complete success?" 

Sydney nodded at Mike…Michael…Vaughn…her handler. Yes, that sounded professional.

"Um, I was wondering if I would be able to get in touch with Danny?" Syd asked. Although, Danny was no longer her boyfriend, she felt kind of guilty liking another guy so soon. Especially, when it was her fault Danny had to leave in the first place.

"We aren't allowed to contact people in Witness Protection, unless it's for agency related issues," Vaughn said. "But I'm sure your father already told you that when you asked him."

"Danny's in Witness Protection? Why would my father know about that when I wouldn't?"

Vaughn looked confused. "Well, who do you think got Danny…" When he realized his mistake, he trailed off, but it was too late.

"Are we done?" Sydney asked, as if daring him to make her stay.

"No," Vaughn said in a small voice. As Sydney marched out the door, he hoped he hadn't just gotten himself in trouble with Jack Bristow. He'd heard stories that made Goosebumps look like fairy tales. Hopefully, Jack wouldn't hold this against him for the rest of his career.


End file.
